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CHARLES 




HEROES OF THE ARMY 



IN AMERICA 



BY 

CHARLES MORRIS 

AUTHOR OF "HISTORICAL TALKS," "HALF-HOURS WITH 
AMERICAN AUTHORS," ETC. 




PHILADELPHIA AND LONDON 

J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY 
1906 






LIBRARY of CONGRESS 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 27 1906 

t Copyright Entry 
GLASS ^ XXr/Nor 



Copyright, 1906 

by 

J. B. Ldppincott Company 



Published November. 1906 



CONTENTS 



PAiSE 

George Washington, the Peerless Soldier and States- 
man 9 

Israel Putnam, the Bold Ranger and Warrior 20 

John Stark, the Old Soldier of Bennington 29 

Ethan Allen, the Chief of the Green Mountain Boys 2>7 

Nathaniel Greene, the Rescuer of the South 45 

Anthony Wayne, the Stormer of Stony Point 56 

Benjamin Lincoln, the Receiver of the Sword of 

Cornwallis 65 

Daniel Morgan, the Rifleman of the Revolution 72 

Henry Lee, the Light Horse Harry of '76 80 

Francis Marion, the Swamp Fox of the Carolinas. ... 88 
George Rogers Clark, the Winner of the Northwest. . 98 
Winfield Scott, the Victor at Niagara and in Mexico 106 
Andrew Jackson, the Old Hickory of the Battlefield. 114 
William Henry Harrison, the Hero of Tippecanoe... 123 
Samuel Houston, the Winner of Texan Independence 131 
Zachary Taylor, the Rough and Ready of Buena 

Vista 140 

George B. McClellan, First Commander of the Army 

OF THE Potomac 148 

Ulysses S. Grant, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies 

OF THE Union 156 

Robert E. Lee, Commander-in-Chief of the Confeder- 
ate Armies 168 

William T. Sherman, Hero of the March through 

Georgia 177 

Thomas Jackson, the Stone Wall of the Confederacy 187 

George H. Thomas, the Rock of Chickamauga 194 

George G. Meade, the Victor at Gettysburg 204 

Joseph E. Johnston, Commander of the Last Confed- 
erate Army 211 



CONTENTS— Continued. 

PAGE 

Philip H. Sheridan, the Hero of the Ride from Win- 
chester 220 

James E. B. Stuart, the Rupert of the South 230 

William S. Rosencrans, the Victor of Stone River. . . . 239 
Nathan B. Forrest, the Dashing Raider of Tennessee 250 
Joseph Hooker, the Hero of the Battle above the 

Clouds 261 

Joseph Wheeler, the " Fighting Joe " of the Con- 
federacy 271 

Ambrose E. Burnside, the Defender of Knoxville. . . . 281 
WiNFiELD S. Hancock, the Superb Infantry Leader... 292 
George A. Custer, a Knight of the Spur and Sabre. . . 300 

George Crook, the Soldier Friend of the Indians 308 

Henry W. Lawton, a Veteran of Three Wars 318 

Nelson A. Miles, the Sioux and Apache Indian 
Fighter 326 



ILLUSTRATIONS. 

/ 

Washington Crossing the Delaware Frontispiece. 

PAGE 

Lincoln Receiving the Surrender of Lord Corn- 

WALLIS 70 

Castle of Ch apultepec 112 

Last Battle-line of Lee's Army 168 

Sherman's March to the Sea 184 

Battle of Second Bull Run 190 

Battle of Chickam auga 198 

Retreat from Gettysburg 208 

Wounded at Siboney 278 

Antietam : The Fight at Burnside's Bridge 282 

Custer's Last Stand 306 ^ 

Indian Room in Miles's House 330 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 
IN AMERICA 

¥ ¥ ¥ 

GEORGE WASHINGTON, THE PEERLESS 
SOLDIER AND STATESMAN 

Greatest and most famous among the heroes of the 
American army is the immortal George Washington, 
the " First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts 
of his countrymen." Washington was first in war in 
another sense than is here intended, since it was he who 
led the men who fired the first shot in the first great 
American war. 

There had been much fighting on American soil 
before the year 1754, when the French and Indian 
War began, — fighting with the Indians, the French, 
and the Spaniards, — and Americans of valor and mili- 
tary genius had made their mark in battle. But these 
were desultory fights, with hastily collected forces ; 
there had been nothing that could be called an Amer- 
ican army before that time ; therefore with the first 
exploit of Washington at the head of the \'irginia 
forces in the spring of 1754 the history of the Ameri- 
can army may be said to have begun. So with the 
shining record of General George Washington we open 
our review of the famous soldiers of the great Ameri- 
can republic. 

To tell once more the stor}- of Washington's life 



10 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

and deeds seems in a sense superfluous. No doubt all 
our readers have read this story, and know a great deal 
about who he was and what he did. But it may be said 
that the lives of great men cannot be told too often, and 
to write about the military heroes of America without 
giving a leading place to the noblest of them all would 
be like giving the drama of Hamlet with the character 
of Hamlet left out. 

George Washington was what is called well-born. 
He belonged to the colonial aristocracy of the Old 
Dominion. His ancestors came from noble English 
families, the first Americans among them, Lawrence 
and John Washington, coming to Virginia in the time 
of Cromwell. John had a son named Augustine, and 
on the 22d of February, 1732, Augustine's first child 
was born. His parents named him George Washing- 
ton, little dreaming how famous that name was after- 
wards to become. 

Little George grew up to be a fine, hearty, handsome 
boy, strong and sound in body and noble in character. 
His father died when he was twelve years of age, 
but his mother, one of the wisest and most excellent of 
women, was left with a good estate. She dwelt in an 
old manor-house on the Rappahannock River oppo- 
site the town of Fredericksburg, and there she devoted 
herself to bringing up her six fatherless children to be 
good men and women. 

George, as the years went on, became a tall, vigorous, 
well-proportioned youth. He got what little education 
the poor Virginia schools of that time could give, was 
good in mathematics and learned surveying, intending 
to become a civil engineer, a profession which promised 
very well in that pioneer period. 

In those days Virginia was in great part an unsettled 



HEROES OF THE ARMY ii 

and little known wilderness. When Washington was 
sixteen he met with Lord Fairfax, a great landholder 
of Virginia, who owned a vast tract of land in the un- 
explored Shenandoah Valley, west of the Blue Ridge 
Mountains. The landowner took a warm fancy for the 
fine manly boy, made him his friend and companion, 
and finally engaged him to survey this pathless forest 
land, on which the foot of a white man had rarely been 
set. It was an excellent opportunity for the young sur- 
veyor, and he did his work so quickly and so well 
that for the next three years he was kept busy survey- 
ing for the colony of Virginia. He was building for 
the future, getting familiar with the wilds, in which he 
was soon to spend active years of war. 

While Washington was surveying trouble was ap- 
proaching. The English and the French alike had 
their eyes on the rich Ohio Valley, and when the 
French began to come down from Canada and build 
forts on the streams south of Lake Erie, Governor Din- 
widdle of Virginia selected the young surveyor, then 
twenty-one years of age, to go to these forts and bid 
the French commanders go back whence they came, 
telling them that they were on English soil. 

It was a difficult task for one so young, one needing 
the judgment and discretion of a much older man, but 
Washington performed it admirably. He made his 
way with a small party through more than five hun- 
dred miles of the unbroken wilderness, wild, wooded 
and mountainous, and came back again in midwinter, 
at great risk from hostile Indians and the icy rivers. 
But his work had been done so well that he was 
warmly thanked by the assembly of Virginia. 

The French paid no heed to Governor Dinwiddle's 
orders. On the contrary they advanced to the Forks 



12 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of the Ohio, where Pittsburg now stands. The irate 
governor now determined to drive them back by force, 
and in the spring of 1754 he sent out a small force of 
militia, of which Washington was lieutenant-colonel. 
The colonel died on the way, leaving Washington in 
command. He w^as to " drive away, kill and destroy, 
or seize as prisoners," any foreigners he found in the 
valley of the Ohio. 

In May the young commander met a small force of 
French at a place called the Great Meadows, shots were 
fired and the leader of the French was killed. That, as 
we have said, was the first shot in the first important 
American war, a conflict which was to last for seven 
years, and not end until the French were forced to 
give up all their possessions in America. 

" I heard the bullets whistle," wrote Washington, 
" and, believe me, there is something charming in the 
sound." 

That was the boast of a very young soldier. He was 
to live through times when he would not think the 
sound of bullets charming. In fact, he soon found it 
so now, for he was besieged by a much stronger 
body of French in a hastily built fortification which he 
named Fort Necessity. There was a brisk fight ; then, 
on July 4, 1754, he was forced to surrender, on con- 
dition that he and his men should be free to go back 
to Virginia. Thus he had his baptism in battle. 

The fights at Great Meadows and Fort Necessity 
opened the war. The next spring General Braddock, 
an obstinate Englishman, too conceited to take advice, 
and utterly ignorant of the ways of the wilderness, was 
sent to Virginia with two regiments of troops. To 
these were added some Virginians under Washington, 
who was now a colonel. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 13 

Through the wilderness marched Braddock against 
Fort Duquesne, a stronghold which the French had 
built at the Forks of the Ohio. As he approached the 
fort his men were drawn out in a long straggling line. 
Washington advised caution, but Braddock was not to 
be taught by a colonel of militia. Suddenly, from the 
surrounding woods, a tempest of bullets was poured 
into the ranks. A French and Indian ambush lay 
behind the bushes and trees. Washington and his 
men took to the woods, but Braddock would not let 
his soldiers seek cover, and kept them under fire until 
in the end he fell, with nearly half his men around him. 

Washington and his Virginians were the only ones 
who came with credit out of that deadly fight. He 
and his men fought the Indians in their own way, and 
when the British troops ran, leaving their baggage and 
cannon behind them, he tried to rally them in vain. 
" They ran like sheep before the hounds," he wrote. 
The best he could do was to cover their retreat. 

Washington took only a local part in the general 
operations of the war that followed. Their success at 
Fort Duquesne had made the Indians so bold that all 
the frontier settlements were in danger, and during 
several years he was kept busy, with a force of about 
two thousand men, in protecting the settlers from 
massacre. 

In 1758 another expedition, under General Forbes, 
was sent against Fort Duquesne, Washington again 
accompanying. Forbes proceeded very slowly, and 
was on the point of giving up and retreating when 
Washington asked permission to go forward with a 
small party of men. He reached the fort to find that 
the French had abandoned it on hearing of his ap- 
proach, and he took possession without a shot. 



14 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

George Washington had won all the credit gained 
in that part of the field of war. But he had been 
given little opportunity to take part in the great 
events of the conflict, and now resigned, married 
Mrs. Martha Custis, a rich and beautiful widow, and 
settled at Mount Vernon as a planter. He was soon 
elected to the House of Burgesses of Virginia, and 
on his appearance there was complimented by the 
speaker for his military services. He rose to reply, 
but, as Irving says, " blushed, stammered, trembled, 
and could not utter a word." 

"Sit down, Mr. Washington," said the speaker; 
" your modesty equals your valor, and that surpasses 
the power of any language I possess." 

For the fifteen years that followed Washington dwelt 
happily in his lovely home at Mount Vernon, cultivat- 
ing and improving his estate and adding to it until 
it amounted to eight thousand acres. He raised wheat 
and tobacco ; he had fisheries and brick yards ; he was 
a good master to his slaves, and in his will gave them 
their freedom. He was for years a member of the 
House of Burgesses, and in 1774 became a member 
of the first Continental Congress. When Patrick 
Henry was asked whom he considered the greatest 
man in Congress, he replied : " If you speak of solid 
information and sound judgment Colonel Washington 
is undoubtedly the greatest man on that floor." 

A change in affairs was close at hand, which was to 
make George Washington great in the eyes of all the 
world. In April, 1774, the fights at Lexington and 
Concord brought the country suddenly from peace to 
war, and two months later, when Congress deliberated 
upon the choice of a commander-in-chief for the patriot 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 15 

soldiers besieging Boston, Washington was unani- 
mously elected to that post. 

On the 2d of July he arrived at Cambridge and took 
command of the army. The farmer soldiery had 
proved their valor at Bunker Hill just before, but they 
were untrained militia, and their new commander had 
a hard task in teaching them the soldier's art and 
supplying them with arms. But in eight months after 
his arrival he had made an army out of this raw militia, 
and forced the British troops to sail away from Boston, 
on whose streets no foeman's foot ever afterwards 
trod. He had won in the first move of the war. 

The second act was at New York. In August, 1774, 
the British landed thirty thousand skilled soldiers on 
Staten Island, against which force Washington had only 
about twelve thousand poorly armed and largely undis- 
ciplined men. Five thousand of these were stationed 
at Brooklyn, Long Island, and on them marched fifteen 
thousand disciplined troops. A short, fierce battle 
ensued ; the Americans were defeated and driven back. 

But Washington proved equal to the situation ; at 
night a dense fog rolled in upon the harbor ; boats were 
hastily collected ; before morning the whole force was 
moved across the river, with nearly all the cannon and 
military stores, the whole done so skilfully and quietly 
that the British were utterly amazed the next morning 
to find that their hoped-for prey had escaped. New 
York could not be held. The narrow island of Man- 
hattan was threatened on both sides by British ships 
that sailed up the Hudson and East Rivers, and Wash- 
ington was obliged to withdraw. There were marches 
and countermarches ; Fort Washington, with its three 
thousand men, was captured by the British ; all looked 
dark for the patriots ; in despair General Reed asked : 



i6 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

" My God, General Washington, how long shall we 
fly?" 

Calm and significant was Washington's answer : 
" We shall retreat, if necessary, over every river of our 
country, and then over the mountains, where I shall 
make a last stand against our enemies." 

The Hudson was crossed. Over the soil of New 
Jersey marched the despairing Continentals, hotly pur- 
sued by the foe. Washington, with brilliant skill, 
baffled all their efforts ; the Delaware was reached 
and crossed ; when the British came to its banks not a 
boat was to be found, Washington had swept them all 
away. For the time they were baffled, but the cause of 
the Colonies seemed at its last gasp and the people 
everywhere lost their hopes. 

But Washington did not despair. He was biding his 
time. On Christmas day of 1776 he led his ragged 
and nearly barefoot men across the Delaware through 
floating blocks of ice, marched to Trenton, where a 
force of troops lay in fancied security, took them by 
surprise and utterly defeated them, taking a thousand 
prisoners. 

General Cornwallis hastened to march upon him with 
a large body of soldiers, confident that he now had him 
in a net from which he could not escape. But when the 
morning dawned Washington and his men were gone 
and the roar of guns showed that a battle was going on 
elsewhere. He had marched away through the night, 
met a body of British troops at Princeton and beaten 
them badly, and was soon on his way to the highlands 
at Morristown, which he had chosen for his winter 
quarters. 

The battles of Trenton and Princeton made a won- 
derful change in public feeling. The people turned 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 17 

from despair to hope. In Europe there was a like 
change in opinion. George Washington had proved 
himself a soldier of the highest ability, his strategy was 
admired and praised, and military critics now began 
to think that he would win. From France came the 
young Marquis de Lafayette to join the American 
army, and everywhere life and patriotism seemed astir. 

In 1777 the British tried a new plan. They now 
sent a fleet to Chesapeake Bay, landed an army of 
eighteen thousand soldiers and marched north upon 
Philadelphia. Washington was on the ground to meet 
them and a battle took place on the banks of the 
Brandywine, in which the Americans were defeated, 
Lafayette being among the wounded. 

The British took possession of Philadelphia. Here 
Washington attempted to surprise and defeat them and 
another hot contest took place at Germantown, But 
there were mistakes and errors, things went wrong, 
and the gallant Continentals were again forced to 
retreat. That winter, a bitterly cold one, was spent at 
Valley Forge, about twenty miles above Philadelphia, 
where the poor patriots suffered terribly from cold 
and hunger, while the British were comfortably housed 
and fed in Philadelphia. 

Yet the Continentals had much cause for hope 
despite the gloom of their situation. A whole British 
army under General Burgoyne had been captured near 
Albany. The French had entered into alliance with 
the Americans and promised to send a fleet and army 
to their support. When the next summer came the 
British, fearing that a French fleet would come up the 
Delaware, left Philadelphia and marched away for 
New York. 

Washington was watching them like a hawk and was 



i8 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

quickly on their track, overtaking them at Monmouth, 
and attacking them with force and fury. The British 
would probably have been utterly defeated but for the 
cowardly act of General Lee, who began to retreat, 
instead of attacking as he was ordered. For once 
Washington broke into a rage and fairly swore at the 
culprit. But it was too late to regain the lost advan- 
tage. The battle that followed was hot and bloody, but 
the British succeeded in escaping during the night. 

This battle regained for Washington all his old 
prestige. While he was at Valley Forge there had been 
a plot in Congress to dismiss him from his command, 
but now Congress gave him a vote of thanks, and the 
admiral of the French fleet wrote him, " Accept, sir, 
the homage which every man, especially every military 
man, owes you." 

After that there was little fighting in the North, 
most of the remaining war being in the South. The 
British kept in New York City, Washington mounting 
guard over them, but he was too weak to attack them. 
The principal events were the gallant capture of Stony 
Point, on the Hudson, by General Wayne, and the 
treason of General Arnold, who tried to deliver the 
fort at West Point to the British. As for the British 
generals in New York, they had had quite enough of 
General Washington, and for several years they were 
kept cooped up like foxes in a den. 

During these years the South was the centre of the 
war. In 1781 it moved from the Carolinas into Vir- 
ginia, and Lord Cornwallis led his army to Yorktown, 
near Chesapeake Bay. Now was Washington's oppor- 
tunity. He made a great show of attacking New York, 
thus deceiving General Clinton, and then marched 
secretly away with his own and the French army that 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 19 

had joined him, and was soon before Yorktown, while 
a French fleet moved up Chesapeake Bay to its rear. 
CoruwalHs was in a trap. CHnton could not come 
to his aid. He was forced to surrender, with all his 
army, and American liberty was won. That victory 
ended the war. 

Washington was now the great hero of the land. By 
courage, military genius, wisdom, and endurance he 
had led his half fed and half clad army to final vic- 
tory, and the whole civilized world looked upon him 
as the greatest soldier of the age, while his own people 
both admired and loved him. He was hailed by all 
as the savior of his country. 

The war ended, Washington retired to his home at 
Mount Vernon, where he expected to spend the re- 
mainder of his life in peace and comfort as a private 
citizen. But this was not to be. The people wanted him 
still. In 1787, when a convention was held at Phil- 
adelphia to form a new constitution for the republic, 
Washington was chosen to preside. In 1788, when the 
time for the election of the first American President 
came, he was unanimously selected ; there was no other 
man to be named beside him. 

For eight years he governed with ripe wisdom the 
country which owed to him its liberty, proving himself 
a statesman as he had proved himself a soldier. In 
1796, he retired again to Mount Vernon, this time, he 
hoped, for the last. But in July, 1798, when there was 
danger of a war with France and an army was called 
out, he was again chosen as commander-in-chief. 
Fortunately no fighting came and the old hero was not 
disturbed in his home. In December, 1799, he took a 
severe cold from riding in wet weather round his farm. 
It rapidly grew worse, the inflammation extended. 



so HEROES OF THE ARMY 

breathing grew more and more difficult, and on the 
14th day of December the greatest of Americans 
passed away. 

He had won for himself a fame which has never since 
dimmed. Now, as then, George Washington is re- 
garded by all true Americans, as " First in war, first in 
peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen." 



ISRAEL PUTNAM, THE BOLD RANGER 
AND WARRIOR 

At Salem, Massachusetts, on the 7th of January, 
1718, was bom Israel Putnam, one of the boldest and 
most daring men who ever stood on American soil. 
His whole life story is a record of brave deeds and 
daring escapes, too numerous for us to do more than 
mention here. The first and one of the most famous 
of these took place when he was living on a farm near 
Pomfret, Connecticut, 

A wolf, the terror of the farmers, had killed many 
of his sheep, and he pursued it to the rock-den in which 
it had taken refuge. How to get at the savage animal 
was the question. Putnam settled it by crawling 
through the narrow opening into the cavern, torch in 
hand ; a rope being fastened to his legs by which his 
comrades could draw him out. 

On seeing the wolf crouched at the back of the 
cavern, he gave the signal agreed upon to his com- 
panions and they drew him out so hastily that his 
clothes were torn to rags and his body lacerated. He 
ventured in again, this time with a gun, on the report 
of which he was again drawn out. On his third 
entrance he emerged dragging the dead wolf by the ears. 

Such was an early exploit of the man who was to 
win a high reputation for courage in future years. It 
gave him such a standing among his fellows that in 
1755, when Connecticut sent a force of one thousand 
men to take part in the French and Indian War, Put- 
nam was chosen as one of its captains. There was fear 



22 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of a French invasion from Canada, and these men were 
sent to the region of Lake George to take part in the 
defence. Here Putnam began his mihtary career as 
scout and ranger, and no American frontiersman ever 
had a more exciting series of adventures. 

After the terrible Indian massacre at Fort William 
Henry, at the foot of Lake George, the American forces 
were gathered into Fort Edward, on the head-waters of 
the Hudson. Putnam, now a major, occupied with his 
corps of rangers an outpost station on a small island 
near the fort. Fearing an attack from the French, 
General Lyman, the officer in command, sent a body 
of laborers into the forest to cut timber to strengthen 
the fort, while Captain Little, with fifty British soldiers, 
were posted to protect them. 

Here, one morning at daybreak, the laborers were 
fired upon by a party of Indians who had crept 
upon them through the forest, and when Captain Little 
came to the rescue he found himself hard pressed by 
superior forces. He sent a messenger to General 
Lyman for aid, but that cautious commander, thinking 
that the whole army of French and Indians were upon 
him, closed the gates in haste and left the party to its 
fate. 

Fortunately, the sound of the firing reached Put- 
nam's ears, and immediately afterwards his scouts 
brought him word of Captain Little's danger. " Follow 
me !" he shouted to his men, as he dashed into the 
water and waded to the shore. His route led him past 
the walls of the fort, on which stood the alarmed 
general. 

" Come into the fort," he cried. " The enemy are in 
overwhelming force. We can spare no more men." 

We are not sure that these were Lyman's exact 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 23 

words, but whatever he said, Putnam went on with a 
muttered reply. Brave men were in danger, and where 
they were was the post of duty. He dashed on, fol- 
lowed by his men, to where the British soldiers were 
fighting the savages. They were on exposed ground, 
while the Indians were in ambush. 

" This is no place for a stand," cried Putnam. 
" Forward ! We must rout out the red devils." 

With loud shouts the whole party plunged into the 
marsh in front and in a minute were face to face with 
the hidden savages. This sudden onslaught threw the 
Indians into a panic. They broke and fled, hotly pur- 
sued, the chase not ending until they had been followed 
through miles of forest and many of them had fallen. 

When Putnam returned it was with an uneasy mind. 
He had disobeyed the orders of his superior. At 
the least he looked for a severe censure. He might 
even be courtmartialed. As it proved, he had no 
cause for fear. Lyman, ashamed of his panic, chose to 
forget Putnam's action and had only words of praise 
for the behavior of the party. Putnam, indeed, had 
saved him from a reprimand from his superiors. 

One other event at Fort Edward showed the daring, 
energy, and decision of Putnam in a high light. The 
barracks within the fort took fire. Twelve feet 
away stood the magazines, stored with three hundred 
barrels of gunpowder. On seeing the smoke and 
flames, Putnam hastened from his island to the fort, 
where he found the garrison in a panic, the flames 
spreading and the magazine in imminent danger. 

There was not a minute to lose. With prompt 
decision he organized a line of soldiers leading to the 
river, each bearing a bucket. Mounting a ladder, he 
poured the water as it came into the burning building. 



24 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

The heat was intense, the smoke suffocating. A pair 
of mittens he wore were burned from his hands. He 
called for another pair, dipped them into the water, and 
kept on. 

An officer called him down from that post of im- 
minent danger, but he would not budge. " We must 
fight the enemy inch by inch," he cried. 

Despite his efforts the fire spread. Descending the 
ladder he took his station between the two buildings 
and continued his active service, his intrepidity giving 
courage to all. The outer planks of the magazine 
caught fire, but he dashed the water upon them. And 
thus he continued for more than an hour, until the 
rafters of the barracks fell in, the heat decreased, and 
the magazine was saved. 

As for himself, he was scorched and blistered from 
head to foot. When he pulled off the second pair of 
gloves the skin of his hands came with them. Several 
weeks passed before he recovered from the effects 
of his fight with fire. But no man could have been 
more tenderly nursed and cared for, since all felt that 
to him they owed the safety of the fort and the lives of 
many or all of the garrison. 

There are other stories of thrilling adventures of this 
daring man. On one occasion he was surprised by a 
large party of Indians when in a boat with a few men 
at the head of the rapids of the Hudson. It was a 
situation of frightful peril. To land, or to stay where 
they were alike meant death from the Indians. To 
go down the rapids seemed a fatal expedient. What 
was to be done? Putnam did not hesitate. The boat 
was pushed from the shore and in a few minutes was 
shooting down the current. The Indians looked on in 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 25 

amazement. Down the foaming stream sped the seem- 
ingly doomed boat, whirling round rocks, sweeping 
down shelves, shooting abrupt falls. 

Putnam did not lose his self possession. His keen 
eye scanned every peril ; his firm hand grasped the 
helm, changing the course at every new danger. A 
few minutes of awful anxiety passed, and then the boat 
floated safely out upon the smooth waters below. The 
Indians gave up the chase, feeling that the men who 
could pass those rapids in safety bore channed lives. 

One more story let us tell. It is one that strikingly 
shows Putnam's wit and quickness of action. It 
happened when the army was encamped in the forest 
to the east of Lake George. It was surrounded by 
prowling Indians, doing all the mischief they could. 
No sentinel was safe, and at one outpost the sentinel 
disappeared every night, with no trace of where he 
had gone. The bravest men were stationed there, 
with orders, if any noise was heard, to call out " Who 
goes there?" three times, and if no answer came, to 
fire. But still the mystery kept up, until the men 
refused to go on so dangerous a post. 

In this dilemma there seemed nothing to do but to 
draw a man by lot, but Putnam settled the difficulty by 
volunteering to occupy the dangerous post. The com- 
mander, glad to have a sentinel of his calibre, gave him 
the same instructions as he had given the others and 
Putnam marched resolutely to the point of peril. He 
examined the surroundings carefully, made sure that 
his musket was in good order, and began his monot- 
onous tramp back and forth. 

Several hours passed, then a slight sound met his 
ear. It seemed a prowling animal. There was a crack- 
ing sound, asof a hog eating acorns. Putnam's quick 



26 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

ear apprised him of the exact location of the sound, 
and he knew the tricks of the Indians too well to let 
even a hog pass unchallenged. Taking aim at the spot, 
he obeyed orders strictly by calling out " Who goes 
there? — three times!" and instantly fired. 

There followed a groaning and struggling noise. 
Loading his musket again, he ran forward and found 
what seemed a large bear in the agonies of death. A 
quick examination showed it to be a gigantic Indian, 
wrapped in a bear skin, who in this guise had been 
able to approach and shoot the sentinels. There was 
no more trouble on that outpost. The sentinels there 
were not again disturbed. 

In August, 1758, Major Putnam passed through the 
most critical adventure of his life. He with Major 
Rogers and eight hundred men were sent to overtake a 
party of the enemy who had cut off a baggage train. 
The attempt was fruitless, the party having escaped, 
and on their return they fell into an ambush of French 
and Indians. A fight ensued in which the Americans 
were successful, but Putnam was taken prisoner by an 
Indian in the midst of the fight and tied to a tree 
between the lines, where he was in imminent peril of 
death from both parties. 

When the Indians retreated they took their captive 
with them, and he was badly maltreated by some of 
them. That night a party of the savages determined to 
burn him alive, and he was tied to a tree and brush 
heaped around him and set on fire. On the first occa- 
sion a shower of rain put out the fire. It was no 
sooner over than the fuel was kindled again, and the 
savages began to dance in yelling delight around the 
blazing pile. 

At this critical juncture a French officer, who had 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 27 

been told of what was going on, dashed in, kicked the 
blazing brands to right and left, and cut loose the cap- 
tive. It was Molang, the leader of the party, who 
severely reprimanded the savages and transferred 
Putnam to the care of the chief who had captured him 
and who had seemed disposed to treat him kindly. 

Putnam was a miserable object when he reached 
Montreal, his scanty clothing in rags, his legs torn by 
thorns and briars, his face blood-stained and swollen. 
He had been wounded in the cheek with a tomahawk 
and struck on the jaw with the butt of a musket, and 
was almost unable to eat. Fortunately his captors did not 
know that they held a man who had won fame by his 
daring, and when an exchange of prisoners was made, 
this seeming old invalid, at the suggestion of General 
Schuyler, a fellow-prisoner, was included among them. 

Thus Putnam got back to the army, in which he 
remained till the end of the war. Near its close he 
met again the Indian whose prisoner he had been and 
who was delighted to see him. At a later time Putnam, 
now with the rank of colonel, took part in the Pontiac 
War, and here marched side by side with his old chief, 
who had joined the English and went with them to do 
battle with the ancient enemies of his tribe. 

Before this war, in 1762, Putnam had taken part 
as leader of the colonial troops in the English expedi- 
tion against Havana. That city was taken, but war 
and disease carried off most of those who took part, 
and he brought back few of the brave fellows who had 
followed him to the Spanish isle. After the Pontiac 
War he resigned, having been ten years in service, and 
during the succeeding ten years he dwelt quietly at 
home, turning his farmhouse into an inn, where he 
busied himself when not engaged in the fields. 



28 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

A patriotic American, he was conspicuous among 
the " Sons of Liberty," and a bitter enemy of the 
English oppressors. When messengers reached Con- 
necticut with news of the scene of blood at Lexington 
and the rise of the people Putnam was busy plowing 
in his fields. Leaving the plow in the furrow, he 
hastened home, bade his wife good-bye, and was off for 
Boston without waiting to change his clothes. 

He was at once made brigadier general, in com- 
mand of the Connecticut troops, and was active at the 
battle of Bunker Hill, where he was ranking officer, 
though he left the actual command in Prescott's hands. 
He bade his men to reserve their fire till the enemy 
were within eight rods, which Prescott bettered by 
telling them not to fire " till they saw the whites of 
their eyes." Promoted major general, he was in 
command on Long Island during the disastrous fight 
at Brooklyn, but was appointed only a few days before 
the battle to succeed General Greene, who was sick, and 
therefore had no chance to study the ground. 

Crossing New Jersey with Washington on his re- 
treat, he was left in command at Philadelphia during 
the night march on Trenton. After filling various 
posts of duty, he was in 1777 appointed to defend the 
Highlands of the Hudson, and while there selected 
West Point as a defensive position and superintended 
the construction of its fortifications. In this command 
he showed his spirit in a characteristic incident. 

While he was at Peekskill, a lieutenant in the British 
service was taken within his lines and condemned as 
a spy. Sir Henry Clinton, on hearing of this, sent a 
flag of truce to Putnam's head-quarters, threatening 
vengeance if the sentence was carried out. The reply 
was brief and significant. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 29 

" Head-quarters 7th August, 1777. — Edmund Pal- 
mer, an officer in the enemy's service, was taken as a spy 
lurking within our lines. He was tried as a spy, con- 
demned as a spy, and shall be executed as a spy, 
and the flag is ordered to depart immediately. — Israel 
Putnam. P.S. He has accordingly been executed." 

In the winter of 1778 Putnam's daring was shown 
in an incident that has become famous. He, with one 
hundred and fifty men and two cannon, was at the 
brow of a steep declivity at a place called Horseneck, 
from which a series of stone steps led to the valley 
below. Here he was assailed by Governor Tryon with 
fifteen hundred men. He defended himself for a time 
with his artillery, but as the dragoons were about to 
charge and his small force was incapable of facing 
them, he ordered the men into a swamp unfit for horse- 
men and rode at full gallop down the steep steps, while 
the foe looked on expecting every moment to see him 
dashed to pieces. But the mettled steed dashed 
down the dangerous hill in safety and the daring rider 
escaped. 

Putnam was now near the end of his long military 
career. In 1779, while returning from a visit home, 
one of his legs became paralyzed, and he was obliged 
to retire from the service. The remainder of his life 
was passed at home, where he died May 19, 1790. 

President Dwight speaks of him as " A man whose 
generosity was singular, whose honesty was proverbial, 
who raised himself to universal esteem and offices of 
eminent distinction by personal worth and a useful life." 

To this eulogy we need but add that for thrilling 
adventures the life of Putnam is almost without a 
parallel in the history of the pioneers of America. 



JOHN STARK, THE OLD SOLDIER OF 
BENNINGTON 

The victory of Bennington made John Stark famous, 
and still more his short and telling speech to his troops 
before the battle joined. But this was only an incident 
in Stark's warlike career, which was long and distin- 
guished, in both the French and Indian and the Revo- 
lutionary struggles. 

His father was a farmer of Londonderry, New 
Hampshire, where the son was born August 28, 1728. 
The father removed to Derryfield, now Manchester, 
in the same State, in 1736, and here the boy passed his 
youth in farming and hunting till one day in 1752, 
when he was taken prisoner while on a hunting excur- 
sion by a party of Indians. While with them they 
forced him to run the gantlet, but he escaped injury 
by snatching a club from the hand of the nearest 
Indian and laying about him to right and left with such 
energy that hardly a blow fell upon him." This and 
other exhibitions of courage and alertness so pleased 
the savages that they adopted him into their tribe, 
under the title of the " young chief." After six weeks' 
detention he was ransomed and set free. 

Three years later the war with the French and In- 
dians began, and Stark at once joined the corps of 
rangers under Robert Rogers, a bold partisan who 
became famous during the war. Stark, already known 
as an able scout, was made a lieutenant in the corps, 
with which he took part in many of its daring deeds. 

After the battle with and defeat of Baron Dieskau, 
in which Stark took part, the militia regiments were 
30 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 31 

disbanded and he returned home. But he was quickly 
in the field again, in a new company recruited by Major 
Rogers, in which only rangers and hunters of courage 
and skill were admitted. Their duty was to act between 
the hostile hosts, to reconnoitre, surprise straggling 
parties, make false attacks, act as guides and couriers, 
and annoy the enemy in every available way. It was 
a service of constant adventure and danger, and Stark's 
life in the years that followed was one of ceaseless 
activity and frequent peril. 

The rangers were kept in continual service, explor- 
ing the woods, lying in ambush for stragglers, and at 
times setting out on scouting expeditions in which they 
had to make their way " through vast forests and over 
lofty mountains." A party of Stockbridge Indians 
joined them, but their skill as woodsmen was in no 
degree superior to that of the rangers, whose lives 
had been spent on the frontier. 

In January, 1757, the company of rangers went 
north on a long scouting expedition over the icy sur- 
face of Lake George, and on reaching a point on Lake 
Champlain half way between Crown Point and Ticon- 
deroga, took some prisoners, from whom they learned 
that there was a strong force of French and Indians at 
Ticonderoga. A retreat at once began, but they had 
been seen and found themselves intercepted by a party 
of the enemy about two hundred and fifty strong. The 
rangers numbered only seventy-eight and a number of 
them were soon disabled by the fire of the enemy. 
Major Rogers among them. In this dilemma Stark 
took command and declared that he would shoot the 
first man who fled, telling them that they were in a 
good position and that a retreat would be fatal. The 



32 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

fight was kept up till night, when the fire of the enemy 
ceased and they began their retreat. 

A number had been killed and there were several 
severely wounded who had to be taken off. This 
rendered their progress slow, and a large fire in the 
woods forced them to make a wide circuit in the night. 
The fire, as was found out afterwards, was kindled by a 
wounded member of their own party who had made his 
way down the lake. 

Reaching a point forty miles from Fort William 
Henry, the wounded men were unable to go further, and 
Stark with two companions set out on snow-shoes for 
the fort, the snow being four feet deep on a level. 
Despite their exhaustion from the fight and retreat 
they reached the fort by evening, and the next day 
returned with a sleigh and a small party. That 
evening the surviving rangers — fifty-four in number — 
reached safety at the fort. 

We give this incident as an example of the kind of 
work the rangers were expected to perform, and of the 
valor and efficiency of Lieutenant Stark. But for his 
resolute will the party would have lost their lives in 
a panic flight, and he well deserved the promotion to 
the rank of captain which he received. 

We cannot give all the stirring incidents in which 
the rangers were concerned in the district around Lake 
George, but must mention that Stark was engaged in 
that hotly-contested fight in which Major Putnam, as 
stated in our sketch of the latter, was taken prisoner by 
the Indians and narrowly escaped with his life from the 
cruelty of the savages. 

Stark took part in Abercrombie's disastrous attack 
on Fort Ticonderoga in 1758, and in the following 
year joined Amherst's army and was present at the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 33 

reduction of the French strongholds of Ticonderoga 
and Crown Point. The success of the Anglo-Ameri- 
cans in the year 1760 brought the war, in that part 
of the field, to an end, and Stark retired from the army, 
with the promise to return if his services were needed. 
During the fourteen years that followed he was quietly 
engaged as a farmer on the rocky New Hampshire soil. 

The sound of the guns that shot down the patriots 
at Lexington fairly seemed to be heard throughout the 
country, so quickly did the event become known. We 
have told how Putnam left his plow in the furrow 
in his eagerness to reach Boston. His old fellow- 
ranger Stark was not less prompt. Within ten minutes 
after the news reached him he was on his horse and on 
the way to the scene of conflict, having directed the 
volunteers of the neighborhood to rendezvous at Med- 
ford, near Boston. Two regiments were formed, of 
one of which Stark was unanimously elected colonel. 

On the memorable 17th of June, 1775, Colonel 
Stark's regiment formed the left of the American line 
behind the rail-fence that formed part of the lines at 
Bunker Hill. Here they held their ground firmly and 
repelled the enemy with great loss, until the fourth 
British charge was made and the lack of ammunition 
forced the Americans to retreat. In the heat of the 
action a soldier came to Stark with the report that his 
son, a youth of sixteen who was with him in the field, 
had been killed. 

" This is not the moment to talk of private affairs," 
was the grim reply ; " go back to your post." 

As it proved, the report was false, and young Stark 
served as a staff-officer through the war. 

Stark continued in the army at Boston until its fall 
and then followed Washington to New York, whence 
3 



34 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

he was sent with his regiment to take part in the ill- 
starred expedition against Canada, The retreating army 
reached Ticonderoga on the 7th of July. Here on the 
following day the Declaration of Independence reached 
the army and Colonel Stark had the satisfaction, on 
tlie scene of his former exploits, to hear the proclama- 
tion read to the cheering troops. The hill on which he 
was encamped was given the name of Mount Inde- 
pendence, and he was soon after ordered to clear and 
fortify this hill, then a wilderness. 

A detachment from the northern army, including 
Colonel Stark's regiment, was later on sent to reinforce 
General Washington. It reached his camp, on the 
west bank of the Delaware, on December 20, increasing 
his army to about seven thousand men. Soon after 
arriving Stark had a conversation with General Wash- 
ington, in which he said : 

" Your men have long been accustomed to place 
dependence upon spades and pickaxes for safety. But 
if you ever mean to establish the independence of the 
United States, teach them to rely upon their firearms." 

Washington replied : " That is what we have agreed 
on. We are to march to-morrow upon Trenton ; you 
are to command the right wing of the advanced guard 
and General Greene the left." 

" You could not give me a more acceptable station," 
replied Stark. 

The story of the brilliant affair at Trenton does not 
need to be retold. Stark did his full share towards 
the success and subsequently fought sturdily at Prince- 
ton, but an event was soon to take place which would 
deprive the army of his valuable services. 

He was sent in March, 1777, to recruit the ranks of 
his regiment, and while there the news came to him 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 35 

that a new list of promotions had been made in which 
his name was omitted, while junior officers had been 
advanced in rank. The injustice, while attributed to 
the work of enemies, he bitterly resented, immediately 
resigned his commission and returned home. On his 
resignation the legislature of New Hampshire returned 
him its earnest thanks for his good service in the war. 

Not long after this event the whole country was 
thrown into dismay by a formidable invasion from 
Canada, So far the war on the northern frontier had 
been a succession of disasters, and the march south- 
ward of Burgoyne, with his powerful army, threatened 
to cut the States of the north into two portions. The 
retreat of the Americans from Ticonderoga added to 
the alarm, which spread widely through the Eastern 
States. Burgoyne was coming, with his veteran sol- 
diers, his Canadian and Indian scouts and rangers, and 
the whole atmosphere was filled with gloom. 

Something needed to be done for self-defence, and 
New Hampshire was quick to act. The militia of the 
State was organized into two brigades, the command of 
one being given to Stark. He accepted it on the condi- 
tion that he would not be obliged to join the main 
army, but be left to hang on the wings of the enemy, 
and that he would be under the command of no one but 
the authorities of New Hampshire. 

General Lincoln soon after met Stark and ordered 
him to lead his men to the west bank of the Hudson. 
Stark refused, saying that he was not under orders 
from Congress and that it was his duty to protect the 
people of Vermont. When Congress heard of this a 
resolution of disapproval was sent to the Council of 
New Hampshire, but it declined to interfere with Stark 
— fortunately, as it proved. 



36 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Stark was at Bennington, Vermont, when he learned 
that a detachment of six hundred men under Colonel 
Baum had been despatched by Burgoyne on a foraging 
expedition in that section, sending a party of Indians 
in advance on a scouting raid. Two hundred men, 
under Lieutenant-Colonel Gregg, were sent out to 
check the Indians, but that night General Stark was 
informed that a large body of the enemy, with a train 
of artillery, was in the rear of the Indians, marching 
towards Bennington. 

On the morning of August 14 he advanced, with all 
the men he could muster. A few miles out he met 
Gregg retreating, with the enemy close at hand. He at 
once halted and drew up his men in order of battle. 
The enemy, seeing this, at once stopped also and in- 
trenched themselves. Thus the armies remained for 
two days, contenting themselves with skirmishing, in 
which the Americans had much the best of the game. 
Baum's Indians began to desert, saying that " the 
woods were filled with Yankees." 

On the morning of the i6th Stark prepared for an 
attack. Before advancing, he addressed his men with 
that brief but telling address which has made his name 
historic : " There are the red-coats ; we must beat them 
to-day or to-night Molly Stark sleeps a widow." 

His dispositions were admirably made. While one 
party attacked the enemy in front, two others were 
, sent to attack them on right and left in the rear. The 
; rear attack set the Indians in flight, the Tories were 
driven over the small river that formed part of the 
lines, and Baum with his Germans, after a sharp fight 
of two hours' duration, were driven from their breast- 
works and forced from the field, leaving their artillery 
and baggage to their foe. They were outnumbered, 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 37 

but it was by a band of raw militia, poorly armed and 
without discipline. 

The militia hastily dispersed to collect the plunder, 
and while they were doing so, word came that a large 
reinforcement from the British army was approachmg 
and only two miles away. Baum joined it, and the 
fortunes of the day were in peril. Fortunately, while 
Stark was vigorously seeking to rally his men. Colonel 
Warner came up with two hundred fresh men, who at 
once attacked the enemy. Stark joined him with what 
men he had collected, and another sharp fight began, 
ending at nightfall in the repulse of the enemy. 
" With one hour more of daylight," said Stark, " we 
would have captured the whole body." 

As it was, the British lost very heavily, there being 
seven hundred prisoners, in addition to a large number 
of killed and wounded, while the American loss was 
small. Burgoyne had lost more than a thousand of 
his best troops, he had failed to obtain the supplies he 
sadly needed, and the whole plan of his campaign was 
deranged. His march was retarded for a month, in 
order to obtain the necessary supplies, during which 
Gates was growing stronger, and Stark's victory at 
Bennington had much to do with Burgoyne's eventful 
surrender. 

Congress hastened to repair its former action by 
appointing Stark a brigadier-general, and in September 
he joined Gates and lent his share to the success of the 
campaign. He continued in the army till the end of the 
war, and was present at the battle of Springfield. From 
this time forward no events of importance marked his 
life. He survived, an honored citizen, till the advanced 
age of ninety-four, Congress voting him a pension 
four years before his death. He died May 9, 1822. 



ETHAN ALLEN, THE CHIEF OF THE 
GREEN MOUNTAIN BOYS 

Chief among those who made the State of Vermont, 
and one of the most stalwart defenders of American 
liberty, was the famous Ethan Allen, a true son of the 
wilderness. Born in Litchfield, Connecticut, January 
ID, 1738, he removed with four younger brothers about 
1763 to the neighborhood of Bennington, Vermont, and 
there became an earnest and ardent leader of the 
bold Green Mountain Boys. Up to that time Vermont 
had been a forest wilderness, the haunt of the wild 
beast and the wilder savage, and Allen and his brothers 
were among its early settlers. To whom the region 
belonged was a matter of controversy between New 
Hampshire and New York, both of which claimed it. 
During the French and Indian war it was a scene of 
the marching and fighting of troops, but before then 
the governor of New Hampshire had oflfered land on 
liberal terms to settlers, and as soon as the war was 
over the Aliens and many other adventurers trooped 
in. Until the era of the Revolution the region was 
known as the New Hampshire Grants. Afterwards it 
became known as Vermont, the French word for Green 
Mountain. 

As time went on a hot dispute arose between the two 
claimants of the region, and in the end the contest was 
referred to the king of England, who decided in 1764 
in favor of New York, fixing the Connecticut River 
as the dividing line between New Hampshire and New 
York. All would now have gone well had not the 
38 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 39 

government of New York attempted to make the 
settlers pay again for the lands they had cleared and 
settled or yield them to new men. This injustice was 
bitterly resented by the frontiersmen, and in 1770 
Ethan Allen, one of their leading spirits, was sent to 
plead their cause before the courts at Albany. The 
whole legal discussion was a piece of idle formality. 
The matter had been decided in advance, and a verdict 
already fixed upon was given against the settlers. 
Allen was advised by the attorneys to go home and get 
his friends to make the best terms they could, the 
proverb being quoted to him that, " Might often pre- 
vails against right." 

The bold mountaineer quaintly replied with an apt 
quotation from the Bible, " The Lord is the God of 
the hills, but He is not the God of the valleys," and 
returned home full of warlike wrath, to infect the 
people with his own spirit. 

When the sheriffs appeared among the mountaineers 
to eject them from their lands something like war 
broke out. The Green Mountain Boys organized them- 
selves into an armed corps, with Ethan Allen for their 
colonel, and prepared to defend their rights by force 
of arms. Thus things went on for several years, the 
sheriffs and their followers being treated, not with 
bullets, but with " the switches of the wilderness," an 
effective argument. Finally Governor Tryon, of New 
York, issued a proclamation offering £ 150 reward 
for the capture of Allen and i 50 for Seth Warner and 
some other ringleaders. Allen retorted by offering a 
reward for the capture of the attorney general of New 
York. 

The trouble grew worse as time went on, the Ver- 
mont settlers ejecting forcibly from their territory all 



40 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

the New Yorkers who intruded on it and gathering in 
force to meet Governor Tryon when told that he was 
about to invade their lands with a body of British 
troops. What might have been the final result it is 
difficult to tell, but in 1775 a war on a wider scope 
broke out and by the time it ended Vermont had broken 
loose from both claimants and gained recognition as a 
part of the Union, though it was not admitted as a 
State till 1791. 

It may well be imagined that the firing of the British 
troops on the patriots at Lexington roused the Green 
Mountaineers as it roused all the rest of New England. 
But they did not, like the others, march at once to 
Boston. There was work for them nearer home. Near 
at hand was the strong Fort Ticonderoga, famous in 
the French war, and known to have a large supply of 
military stores and a feeble garrison. 

The eagerness to take Ticonderoga was not confined 
to Vermont. Steps to do so were also taken in Massa- 
chusetts and Connecticut. But the Green Mountain 
Boys were first in the field, with Ethan Allen at their 
head. Benedict Arnold obtained a commission from 
Massachusetts and made all haste to Lake George, 
leaving his recruits, when raised, to follow. Here 
he found Allen and his men and claimed the command 
in virtue of his commission. But Vermont did not 
acknowledge a Massachusetts commission, the moun- 
taineers were in no mood to accept a new commander 
at such a time, and Arnold, failing in his effort, joined 
the force as a volunteer. 

Nathan Beman, a boy who had often been in the fort, 
was obtained as a guide and the advance force, eighty- 
three in number, crossed the lake by night, reaching the 
vicinity of the fort in the early morning of May 10. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 41 

The boats were sent back for the others, but the im- 
petuous Allen had no thought of awaiting them. The 
opportunity of taking the stronghold by surprise was 
too good to be lost. Silently but with a quick step he 
led the men up the heights on which the fortress stood, 
entered the open and undefended gates, and before 
the sun rose had drawn up his men in order upon the 
parade ground. Three cheers were now given, which 
wakened the sleeping inmates. 

The only resistance offered was by a sentinel, who 
snapped his fusee at Allen, and by another who made 
a thrust at an officer with a bayonet, slightly wound- 
ing him. In a moment more Colonel Allen, led by 
Nathan Beman, ascended the stairs leading to the 
apartment of the commandant, Captain Delaplace, and 
in a voice of thunder ordered him to appear. The 
astonished captain sprang from his bed and threw 
open the door, when he was met with a stern command 
to surrender the fort. 

Rubbing his still sleepy eyes, the captain asked in 
whose name his visitor made such a demand. 

" In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Conti- 
nental Congress !" roared Allen in reply. 

Such authority as this could not be controverted, 
backed up as it was by the sword brandished over his 
head, and the captain was obliged to submit and order 
his men to yield. They numbered but fifty in all, but 
the fort contained a large amount of arms and artillery 
which afterwards proved of great use to the Conti- 
nental army. 

Seth Warner, a captain under Allen, crossed the lake 
with the remainder of the troops, arriving to find the 
fort occupied by his fellows, and was sent soon after- 
wards up Lake Champlain against the fort of Crown 



42 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Point. This also was taken, with its garrison of twelve 
men, its military stores, including sixty-one cannon, 
being in good condition. 

Arnold had marched side by side with Allen into the 
fort, and the two now proceeded in boats up Lake 
Champlain against St. John's. This place was taken, 
but they were too weak to hold it, Allen being attacked 
by a force of two hundred men and driven to his boats, 
with which he returned to Ticonderoga. 

The views of the frontier colonel now expanded, and 
on the 2d of June he wrote a letter to the Provincial 
Congress of New York, suggesting an invasion of 
Canada. His views were not accepted, perhaps unfor- 
tunately, for at that time the British forces in that 
province were in no condition to make a vigorous 
defence. About three months later Congress ordered 
such an expedition, but then it proved too late and the 
aflFair ended in defeat and disaster. 

Meanwhile Colonel Allen proceeded to Philadelphia, 
where he received the thanks of the Continental Con- 
gress for his services. When the expedition against 
Canada was decided upon, he joined its leader, General 
Schuyler, as a volunteer, and was sent north by him 
on a secret mission, to learn the opinions of the 
Canadians. 

He was very successful in this mission, found that 
many of the Canadians and Indians were ready to join 
him, and soon after was sent north again by General 
Montgomery, who was now in command of the expedi- 
tion and was besieging St. John's. In a week's time 
Allen had gathered a force of two hundred and fifty 
Canadians, and men came in so fast that he wrote 
Montgomery that he would join him in three days with 
five hundred or more. In a week, he said, he could 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 43 

;:^ather one or two thousand, but he deemed it best not 
to wait. 

His daring and precipitation soon put a disastrous 
end to his plans and hopes. On his march to St. 
John's, when opposite Montreal, he met Major Brown, 
with a small party of men. Brown proposed an 
attack on that city, saying that it was poorly defended 
and could easily be taken. Allen joined eagerly in the 
enterprise, crossed the St. Lawrence by night at a 
point a little below Montreal with about one hun- 
dred men, and waited for the expected signal from 
Brown, who had agreed to cross with a larger force 
above. 

Brown's signal did not come. It was evident he 
had not crossed. Allen's canoes were capable of 
carrying only one-third of his party and retreat was 
impossible. A much stronger force advanced against 
him from Montreal, and after nearly two hours of 
fighting he was obliged to surrender, on promise of 
honorable terms. All his men had deserted during 
the fight except thirty-eight, who surrendered with him. 
Thus, by engaging in a rash and hazardous enterprise 
Allen's aid to Montgomery was brought to a disas- 
trous termination. 

General Prescott, in command at Montreal, treated 
his prisoner, on learning that he was the man who 
had taken Ticonderoga, harshly and brutally. He 
threatened him with hanging, sent him in fetters on 
board the Gaspee sloop-of-war, and dealt with him 
and his men as criminals, subjecting them to many 
indignities. Allen was soon after sent to England, 
being treated on the voyage in the same harsh man- 
ner, and still kept in irons on landing in England. 
Here Allen was an object of great curiosity, being 



44 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

attired in the picturesque dress of a frontiersman, 
which seemed very odd and grotesque to the EngUsh 
observers. 

We shall briefly tell the story of his imprisonment. 
After a short stay in England he was sent back and 
confined in prison ships and jails in Halifax and New 
York, being harshly treated and heavily ironed most 
of the time. He was finally paroled and allowed some 
degree of liberty in the streets of New York, Alex- 
ander Graydon, a fellow-captive, has given a graphic 
picture of him as he appeared at this time. 

" His figure was that of a robust, large-framed 
man, worn down by confinement and hard fare. His 
style was a singular compound of local barbarism. 

Scriptural phrases, and oriental wildness 

Notwithstanding that Allen might have had something 
of the insubordinate, lawless, frontier spirit in his 
composition, he appeared to me to be a man of gen- 
erosity and honor." 

On May 3, 1778, Allen was exchanged, and became 
a free man once more. He hastened to Washington's 
camp at Valley Forge, and would have joined the army 
had not the troubles in Vermont broken out again. 
The Green Mountain Boys had declared their inde- 
pendence in 1777 and applied for admission to the 
Confederation on the same terms as the other colonies, 
but New York strongly opposed this. During the 
next few years the controversy continued, Congress 
hesitating to offend New York, and the British com- 
manders, taking advantage of the discontent of the 
Vermonters, tried to get them to accept the king's 
authority, promising to make Vermont an independent 
British province. 

In 1782 Allen sent their letters to Congress. From 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 45 

that time Vermont was looked upon as an integral part 
of the Union, and during the remainder of his life 
Allen was highly regarded by his fellow Vermonters. 
He died February 13, 1789. 

He was a man of fantastic ideas, one of them being 
a belief in the transmigration of souls. He asserted 
that he had once lived on the earth in the form of a 
white horse. He wrote a work entitled " Reason the 
only Oracle of Man," the first work ever issued in 
America formally attacking Christianity. A fire de- 
stroyed most of the edition and the volume is now very 
rare. 



NATHANIEL GREENE, THE RESCUER OF 
THE SOUTH 

Second only to Washington as a soldier of the 
Revolution was General Nathaniel Greene, who served 
in Washington's army through nearly the whole war, 
and was so esteemed by him that he selected Greene 
to take his place in case anything should happen to 
himself. All readers of American history are familiar 
with General Greene's brilliant work in the South, 
but during the whole war he proved himself a soldier 
of exceptional ability. 

Nathaniel Greene was born in Warwick, Rhode 
Island, on May 27, 1742, the son of a Quaker of that 
place, who owned a farm and an iron forge, in which 
latter Nathaniel worked for years. The boy was ambi- 
tious and studious, being so eager for learning that 
he worked long over-hours to earn money to buy 
books, and sat up very late at night to study them. 

His industry, learning, and native good sense won 
him the good opinion of every one who knew him, 
and in 1770 his fellow townsmen elected him to the 
legislature of Rhode Island. A warm and earnest 
patriot, he saw that the colonies might at any time take 
up arms against British oppression and hostilities 
begin. In such a case his side w'as fixed and he began 
to study the art of war, joining the Kentish Guards 
of Coventry. For this warlike spirit he was expelled 
from the Society of Friends into which he had been 
born, but he went on drilling and studying, and when 
the news of the fight at Lexington reached Rhode 

46 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 47 

Island he was quick to start with the Guards for 
Boston. The Tory governor of the colony ordered 
them back, but Greene and three others refused to 
obey. Mounting the fastest horses they could find, they 
rode briskly away to the seat of war. 

Soon after this the Assembly of Rhode Island, 
whose members were more patriotic than their gov- 
ernor, called out a force of sixteen hundred men, and, 
recognizing Green's knowledge of the military art, 
appointed him a brigadier general. In July, when 
Washington reached Boston and took command of the 
army, he found that Greene had drilled his raw troops 
so thoroughly, that he commended them as " the best 
disciplined men in the whole army." 

Washington knew good men when he saw them, 
and was quick to perceive that there was the making 
of a fine soldier in the young Rhode Islander. The two 
became fast friends from the start, and after the 
capture of Boston and the march to New York, Greene 
was put in command of the army sent to defend Long 
Island. It was a responsible task, but a violent attack 
of fever disabled him, and he was doomed to the 
severe trial of lying within sound of the firing while 
too sick to lift his head from the pillow. The battle 
might have ended differently had he remained in 
command, for he had made himself thoroughly familiar 
with the ground and knew the best points of attack and 
defence. He cried with vexation when he heard of 
the defeat and of the great loss to his favorite regiment. 

As soon as he could mount a horse again active duty 
was found for him in watching the British on Staten 
Island and commanding the troops in New Jersey. 
He took part in the retreat to Pennsylvania, and later 
that year, when Washington made his famous march 



48 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

upon Trenton, Greene, now a major-general, com- 
manded the division with which Washington marched, 
and aided materially in the victory there and at 
Princeton. 

During the winter that followed the army was 
encamped at Morristown, N. J., and Washington sent 
Greene to Congress as his envoy, to set before the 
legislature the condition of the troops, the great need 
of recruits, the lack of supplies, and the impending 
dangers. Some aid was gained, but a very insufficient 
amount, and the army began the next year's campaign 
very poorly equipped for the work before it. 

In the two battles of that year, Brandywine and 
Germantown, General Greene took a prominent part, 
and the result might have been different if his advice 
had been taken. He selected strong defensive positions 
for the army on the Brandywine, but other generals, 
who were eager to fight in the open field, overruled 
his suggestions, and defeat followed. The disaster 
would have been worse but for Greene's coolness and 
skill in the retreat. Selecting a spot in a narrow pass 
through a thicket, he held back the pursuing British 
until nightfall, thus giving the broken troops an oppor- 
tunity to reform their ranks and saving the army from 
destruction. At the subsequent battle of Germantown 
he was in command of the left wing and skilfully 
covered the retreat. 

There followed the terrible winter at Valley Forge, 
at the end of which, in March, 1778, Greene was 
appointed quartermaster-general of the army, a post 
which he filled with great ability until August. 1780. 
When in the following June the British left Philadelphia 
in great haste and marched across New Jersey, Greene 
was one of the most ardent of the pursuers, and was 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 49 

in command of the right wing when the foe was 
brought to bay at Monmouth. 

Here he performed the ablest service. General Lee's 
retreat threatened the security of the whole army, the 
British following in force, and but for Greene's 
promptness a serious disaster might have resulted. 
Lee's movement prevented him from carrying out the 
orders given him, but with quick decision and without 
waiting for further orders he threw his troops into the 
gap, drew a large part of the attack upon himself, and 
sustained it with unflinching resolution. His men, 
inspired with his spirit, held their ground steadily 
and poured volley after volley into the ranks of the 
British until they recoiled in dismay. The disaster 
threatened by Lee's cowardice did not take place, 
but the Americans were robbed of the victory which 
had been fairly in their grasp. 

In the subsequent manoeuvres in front of New York 
Greene was occupied with his duties as quartermaster- 
general, but took an active part in the movement of 
General Sullivan upon Newport, made in connection 
with the French fleet under D'Estaing. A disa- 
greement had arisen between Sullivan and D'Estaing, 
with the result that the French failed to support the 
Americans, leaving them in serious danger, from which 
Greene rescued them. He held his ground against the 
British till they were forced to retire and drew off his 
men before they were ready to make another attack. 

This affair made Sullivan furious against the 
French, whom he blamed for what came near being 
a disaster. He wrote Congress a sharp letter against 
D'Estaing, but when it reached Philadelphia Greene 
was there, having been sent by Washington to try and 
make peace between the two angry men. D'Estaing and 
4 



50 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

some other distinguished Frenchmen were present in 
the gallery of Congress. As the clerk was opening 
Sullivan's letter, Greene, who suspected what it con- 
tained, sent a slip of paper to the president of Congress 
on which was written, 

" Don't let that letter be read until you have looked 
it over." 

The president bade the clerk in a whisper not to read 
it, other business came up, and when the president at 
length read the offensive missive he decided at once 
that it must be suppressed. Those few words perhaps 
saved to America the aid of the French, for, if the 
letter accusing him had been made public, D'Estaing 
might have sailed away with his fleet. 

A period of rect followed the unlucky expedition 
to Newport, and during this time of quiet Greene's 
enemies assailed him, as Washington's had assailed him 
during the winter at Valley Forge. He was accused 
of using his office as quartermaster for his own benefit 
and Congress called him to account. Greene indig- 
nantly denied the slanders, proved that the charges 
against him were false, and then resigned his post as 
quartermaster. 

In June, 1780, Washington moved north to protect 
West Point, which the British seemed on the point of 
attacking, and left Greene on duty at Springfield, 
New Jersey. Clinton, in command at New York, was 
apprised of these movements, and when Washington 
was well on his way, the British, five thousand strong, 
suddenly turned and marched on Greene's small force, 
thirteen hundred in all. But he placed these in such 
excellent positions and inspired them with such sol- 
dierly zeal that the assailing force was foiled and 
obliged to march back again. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 51 

The next affair in which he was engaged had to do 
with Benedict Arnold's treasonable attempt to deliver 
West Point to the British. Greene was temporarily 
in command of the army while Washington had gone 
to Hartford to consult with the French generals. 
Greene had his spies in New York and through them 
he discovered that some movement seemed on foot. 
He sent word to Washington, but advised keeping 
the information quiet until the secret revealed itself. 

They had not long to wait. In a few days after- 
wards Andre was captured and the treason revealed. 
Greene presided over the court-martial by which 
Andre was tried and signed the death-warrant. The 
sentence was severer than he liked, but he felt that it 
was necessary. He was then given the command of 
West Point. We may be sure that the British did 
not approach him with treasonable offers. 

While these affairs were taking place in the North, 
the active seat of war had been transferred to the 
South, severe fighting had been taking place in Georgia 
and the Carolinas and the British had overrun that 
section of the country until it all lay under their con- 
trol. General Gates, who had had the good fortune 
to command the army to which Burgoyne surren- 
dered, had been sent to the Carolinas, but handled the 
army there so badly that it suffered a complete defeat 
at Camden, South Carolina, the commander and all 
his troops being dispersed. The incompetent Gates 
was in consequence withdrawn from his command 
and in October, 1780, Greene was sent south to take 
charge of the disorganized and scattered forces. It 
was his first independent command, and in it he was 
to gain a fame second only to that of Washington 
himself. 



52 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

General Greene had a task before him that would 
have discouraged any man lacking in energy and 
resolution. The army, such as it was, wanted every- 
thing an army should have had. After the battle of 
Camden there was little left that could be called a 
military force, it being so utterly shattered that Gates 
himself was seen soon after the battle eighty miles 
from the battlefield and without a soldier. The 
scattered forces Greene found lacked discipline, cloth- 
ing, arms, and spirit. Bad handling and defeat had 
taken the very life out of them, and their new general 
had a hard task in bringing them together and supply- 
ing them with the necessaries of life. 

Congress had no money to give him for supplies, 
the term of service of most of the men was at an end, 
and the new forces he gathered were mostly raw 
militia, who knew nothing of drill or discipline and 
had never seen a gun fired on a battle-field. With 
this sorry shadow of an array General Greene set out 
to face the old and able troops under Cornwallis. 

The story is told that, on one occasion during the 
campaign, Greene reached a tavern at Salisbury, North 
Carolina, after midnight, wet to the skin with the heavy 
rain. Steele, the landlord, who knew him, looked at 
him with surprise, and asked if he was alone. 

" Yes," he said, in a disconsolate tone, " tired, 
hungry, alone, and penniless." 

Mrs. Steele, who heard him, hastened to set before 
him a smoking hot meal. Then she drew from under 
her apron two bags of silver and held them out to her 
guest, saying, " Take these : you need them and we 
can do without them." 

It was this spirit in the women of the Carolinas 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 53 

that greatly helped the men in those times of stress and 
strain. 

Greene gradually got together an army of about two 
thousand men, regulars and militia, half clad and half 
supplied. With these he faced the veterans of Corn- 
wallis. With him were three excellent officers, Daniel 
Morgan, the famous rifleman, William Washington, 
cousin to the commander-in-chief, and Henry Lee, the 
daring " Light Horse Harry." 

The first battle was fought on January 17, 1781, at 
Cowpens, South Carolina, where Morgan, with nine 
hundred men, met a larger force under the notorious 
Colonel Tarleton, and defeated them so completely 
that they were almost destroyed. Morgan's loss was 
very small. 

When the news of this victory reached Greene and 
his army it filled them with joy and hope. But Corn- 
wallis was now hastily advancing with his whole army, 
much larger and better equipped than that of Greene, 
who was too weak to meet him. Morgan hastened to 
join him, crossing the Catawba River just as Corn- 
wallis appeared on the other side. That night a heavy 
rain swelled the stream and the British could not cross 
it for three days. It was a happy meeting when Greene 
and Morgan came together. Northward they marched, 
reaching and crossing the Yadkin. When Cornwallis 
came to this stream he was again vexed to find it 
swollen with rain. Still the two armies sped northward 
till the forks of the Dan River were reached. Again 
Greene was first and crossed over to Virginia soil, 
holding the fords so firmly that Cornwallis dared not 
follow him. 

By this masterly retreat he had drawn the British 
commander tv/o hundred miles from his base and 



54 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

baffled him at every point. Washington wrote him 
when he heard of it, " your retreat before CornwaUis 
is highly applauded by all ranks." 

Reinforcements reaching him, Greene soon felt 
strong enough to advance and at every point to harass 
the retreating British. When Guilford Court-House 
was reached the position of the invaders was so 
critical that CornwaUis was forced to turn and fight. 
Greene met him boldly. The militia were soon broken 
and fled but the Continental regulars held their own 
with much courage. In the end they were driven 
back, but the British had been so roughly handled 
that they had no heart to pursue these unbroken 
troops. It was a defeat for Greene, but it had all the 
effect of a victory. CornwaUis found his army so 
cut up that it was in no shape for a further fight, 
supplies were sadly needed, and he retreated to Wil- 
mington, North Carolina, which he reached in very 
bad plight. 

South Carolina was abandoned in the retreat. 
CornwaUis never returned there, but made his way 
north into Virginia, where he met his fate at York- 
town. Greene pursued him for some distance towards 
Wilmington, then turned and made a march two 
hundred miles long into South Carolina. Here he 
was joined by the active partisan leaders, Sumter, 
Marion, and Pickins, and encamped at Hobkirk's Hill, 
near Camden, where Lord Rawdon was in command. 

Rawdon attacked and defeated him on April 25, 
but it was another defeat that had the effect of a 
victory, and Rawdon found Camden an unsafe place 
to hold. Greene went on taking post after post from 
the British, and on September 8 met the forces under 
Rawdon again at Eutaw Springs. Here a sharp battle 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 55 

was fought, in which Greene lost heavily and was 
forced from his positions. Once more his defeat served 
as a victory, for Rawdon had got more than he bar- 
gained for and during the night he left the field, 
retreating towards Charleston. 

It was during this battle that a soldier of Lee's 
legion, named Manning, while pursuing a flying regi- 
ment, found himself suddenly alone in the midst of 
the enemy. Not an American was near. Without 
hesitation he seized an officer by the collar, wrested his 
sword from him and backed off, drawing him along as 
a shield. 

*' I am Sir Henry Barry," cried the dismayed officer, 
" deputy adjutant-general, and captain in the Fifty- 
second regiment." 

" That will do," said Manning, " you are just the 
man I was looking for." 

Thus Greene went on, technically defeated, but 
winning everywhere by his skill and strategy, and 
before the end of the year he had the British shut 
up in Charleston and the States of the South freed 
from their hands. Shortly afterwards the gallant de- 
fender of the South was gladdened with the news of 
Washington's brilliant feat and the surrender of his old 
foe, Cornwallis, at Yorktown. 

Practically the war was ended, but Greene was kept 
busy till the end of 1782, watching the British gar- 
risons, while his own army was in the greatest distress. 
Food, clothing, money, ammunition were wanting; 
sickness broke out, and finally mutiny. His force 
grew so small that he proposed to enlist negro soldiers, 
but this the authorities would not permit, nor would 
they let the soldiers forage for food. Their condition 
was fairly desperate when the war ended and their 



$6 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

gladdened eyes saw the last of the British sail away 
from Charleston. Great was the rejoicing, while 
throughout the country the name of Greene was hailed 
as second only to that of Washington. 

Congress had voted him a gold medal in honor of 
his services at Eutaw Springs, and the Carolinas and 
Georgia granted him valuable tracts of land. These he 
pledged to secure food and clothing for his soldiers, 
and most of his land was lost through the false dealing 
of a man whom he trusted. On the remainder he 
settled down in Georgia in 1785, and here, on the 19th 
of June, 1786, he died of a sunstroke, which attacked 
him while walking in his fields. 

His widow remained there, and it was she who, in 
1792, suggested to Eli Whitney the need of a cotton- 
cleaning machine, and encouraged him in that series 
of experiments which ended in the invention of the 
invaluable cotton-gin. 



ANTHONY WAYNE, THE STORMER OF 
STONY POINT 

" Mad Anthony " is the title of honor usually 
given to General Anthony Wayne of the Revolutionary 
War. Of honor, we say, for this title was used not 
in contempt but in compliment, to designate his 
daring and impetuous way of fighting. To apply an 
old saying, there was " method in his madness." He 
knew no such feeling as fear, but his boldness was 
tempered with judgment, and his generalship usually 
led to victory. 

This famous American warrior was born on the ist 
of January, 1745, in Chester County, Pennsylvania. 
His grandfather had fought at the battle of the Boyne, 
under King William, in Ireland, his father had seen 
service as a soldier, and as a boy he, too, had a strong 
fancy for fighting. Educated in Philadelphia, he took 
up the art of a surveyor, and in 1773 engaged in public 
life as a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly. 

From early manhood he took a firm stand as a 
patriot and vigorously opposed the tyrannous acts of 
the British King and Parliament. He became a mem- 
ber of the Committee of Safety in 1775, and after the 
day of Lexington and Concord he called on the 
patriotism of his friends and neighbors of Chester 
County, and soon had a regiment in arms, of which he 
took command. He was appointed its colonel by 
Congress in January, 1776, and in April was sent with 
his men to Canada in the expedition under General 
Thompson. Here he gave the British the first taste 

57 



58 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of his quality in the battle of the Three Rivers. This 
affair ended in a defeat ; General Thompson was taken 
prisoner and Colonel Wayne was wounded. But 
despite his wounds he took command of the shattered 
troops, collected them together, and led them off 
gallantly in the face of the victors. 

This was Anthony Wayne's christening in war. 
His next term of service was at Fort Ticonderoga, 
where he held the command for six months, during 
which he gained credit alike for courage and skill as 
an engineer. His good service here won him the rank 
of brigadier-general and in May, 1777, he joined 
Washington in New Jersey, leaving the north on the 
eve of the Burgoyne expedition. 

Washington soon found work for Wayne to do. 
The British from New York landed at the head of the 
Chesapeake and marched northward towards Phila- 
delphia, then the seat of Congress. The Americans 
awaited them on the line of the Brandywine. The men 
under Washington at that time were far inferior to 
their foes in numbers, arms, and discipline, but the 
country was eager for a fight and the experienced 
commander did not deem it wise to abandon the capital 
without a blow in its defence. At this battle, Septem- 
ber II, 1777, Wayne was in command of the left wing 
of the army at Chadd's Ford, and held off the British 
for the whole day. When the line was broken else- 
where, and victory perched on the British banner, he 
still defended his post gallantly and led his men off 
safely in the evening shades. 

Washington, though defeated, was not dismayed. 
He determined to take advantage of the first favorable 
opportunity to meet the foe in battle again, and de- 
tached General Wayne, with his division, with orders 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 59 

to harass the advancing British in every way possible. 
Washington, indeed, was still full of fight, and on the 
i6th the advance guard of the two armies met again, 
Wayne in the leading columns. But battle was hardly 
begun when a very heavy rain came on, wetting the 
ammunition and making both sides unfit to fight. 

Washington withdrew to the Schuylkill, leaving 
Wayne to execute the work laid out for him. On the 
20th of September the British were encamped at a 
place called Tredyffrin and Wayne lay near the Paoli 
tavern, about three miles in the rear of their left wing. 
He took precautions against surprise, but the British 
scouts had learned his location, and about eleven 
o'clock that night Major-General Gray, having driven 
in his pickets, suddenly rushed upon him with a strong 
force with fixed bayonets. Taken by surprise, the Ameri- 
cans made what defence they could, but, broken and 
outnumbered, they were speedily driven from their 
ground, wath the loss of about one hundred and fifty 
men in killed and wounded. This night attack became 
known in the army as the " massacre of Paoli," and 
in later fights the inspiriting shout of " Remember 
Paoli " was used as a war-cry by Wayne's men. 

Blamed for allowing himself to be surprised, Wayne 
demanded a court-martial, which, when it had heard 
the evidence, acquitted him with honor, declaring that 
he had done everything to be expected from an active, 
brave, and vigilant officer. It was the only time in his 
career that General Wayne's conduct was called in 
question. A marble monument has been erected on the 
battle-ground at Paoli, in memory of the men who fell 
that fatal night. 

Washington was still determined to bring the enemy 
to account, and early in October, finding that Howe 



6o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

had divided his army, the larger part of which was at 
Germantown, some miles above Philadelphia, the re- 
mainder in that city, he determined to take the Ger- 
mantown forces by surprise. At seven o'clock in the 
evening of October 3d the Americans began to march 
from their camp about fourteen miles distant, Wayne 
in command of the right wing. It was daybreak before 
the battle began, mistakes occurred in the movement 
of the several divisions, and though Wayne greatly 
signalized himself by his spirited manner of leading 
his men into action, the surprise proved a failure and 
the Americans were repulsed. Wayne had one horse 
shot under him, and another fell as he was in the act 
of mounting, while he received slight wounds himself. 

The frightful winter at Valley Forge followed, dur- 
ing which Wayne was kept active in foraging for pro- 
visions. When the British left Philadelphia in the 
following year and were hotly pursued across New 
Jersey by Washington, Wayne took active part. In 
the council of war held before the battle of Monmouth, 
he and General Cadwallader were the only officers 
decidedly in favor of attacking the British army. 
Washington agreed with them and took measures 
which brought the battle on. In the conflict that 
followed Wayne and Greene were especially ardent 
in the attack, and while General Charles Lee, by an 
uncalled-for retreat, imperilled the day, the impetuous 
Wayne did much to assure success. In Washington's 
report to Congress he gave General Wayne the highest 
credit for his splendid conduct through the whole 
battle. 

In July, 1779, after Washington had shut up the 
British army in New York, and was constantly on the 
alert to prevent any dangerous movements on their 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 6i 

part, General Wayne performed the great exploit of 
his life, the most brilliant act of prowess in the Revo- 
lution, and one which especially brought him the 
title of Mad Anthony — the storming of Stony Point. 

Stony Point is a commanding hill, projecting into 
the Hudson River, which washes its base on three 
sides. On the fourth side is a deep marsh, with only 
one crossing place, though at low tide there is another 
pass along the sandy beach. On the summit of this 
hill the British had built a strong fort, well supplied 
with heavy guns, and defended by breastworks and 
strong batteries in front, while halfway down the hill 
were two rows of abatis. Guns were trained to 
command the beach and the marsh passes, while several 
warships in the river were stationed so that their fire 
could sweep the ground at the foot of the hill. The 
garrison consisted of about six hundred men, under 
Lieutenant-Colonel Johnson. 

To satisfy the demands of the people that something 
should be done, Washington determined to attack this 
strong post, and General Wayne, who commanded a 
body of light infantry in advance of the main army, 
was chosen as the man best fitted for so hazardous an 
enterprise. The only hope of success lay in a surprise, 
and the night of the 15th of July was selected for the 
attempt, twelve o'clock being fixed upon as the hour, as 
that in which the garrison would probably be most oflF 
their guard. 

The infantry began their march from Sandybeach, 
fourteen miles away, at noon of the 15th, and, travers- 
ing a very rugged and difficult country, reached a 
point a mile and a half from the fort at eight o'clock 
in the evening, their presence unsuspected by the 
enemy. Wayne and his officers reconnoitred the 



62 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

works, and at half past eleven the troops moved for- 
ward in two columns for the assault. The right 
column consisted of one hundred and fifty men, with 
twenty picked men in advance to remove the abatis 
and other obstructions. The left column consisted of 
one hundred men, with a similar body in advance. 

Every man had a piece of white paper fixed in his 
cap, to prevent mistaking their own men for the enemy, 
and the strictest orders were given not to fire a shot, 
but to trust wholly to the bayonet. Complete silence 
was to be kept, and any man disobeying these orders 
was to be instantly killed, on the principle that the 
death of one might save the lives of hundreds. Re- 
wards were offered for the man who should first enter 
the works. 

The marsh was reached without discovery, but delay 
was experienced here and also at the abatis, and the 
assault did not begin till twenty minutes after twelve. 
By this time involuntary noises had alarmed the garri- 
son, who rushed to their guns and poured a tremen- 
dous fire of musketry and grape-shot upon the advanc- 
ing columns. But, inspirited by the example of their 
commander and their officers, the men rushed reso- 
lutely forward, with levelled bayonets, and in a few 
minutes the two columns met in the midst of the 
enemy's works, both arriving at the same moment. 

The rush had been so impetuous that the garrison 
suddenly found itself in the midst of a circle of foes, 
not firing a shot but dealing death with the bayonet. 
Thrown into a panic they hastened to surrender, and 
in a moment more the proud British flag came down. 
In the rush Wayne was struck in the forehead by a 
musket ball, and fell to the ground. Believing that he 
was mortally wounded, he asked to be carried forward, 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 63 

that he might die in the fort. But he proved to be only 
stunned, and in a few minutes he recovered and was 
one of the first to enter the works. 

The success was complete and had been achieved 
with Httle loss, while sixty-three of the garrison were 
killed and the rest taken prisoners, all the munitions 
and stores being captured. These were soon removed 
and the fort was destroyed, Washington's purpose 
having been achieved and the country made hopeful by 
a gallant deed. From that time forward General Wayne 
was fondly designated " Mad Anthony " by the admir- 
ing people. Congress voted him the thanks of the 
nation and a gold medal, and we may be sure that 
Washington added his warmest commendation. 

This was Wayne's greatest feat during the war. In 
1781 he was in "Virginia during the advance of Lord 
Cornwallis from the South, and was on the James 
River when the British were crossing. Deceived by 
false information, he supposed that all the British army 
but the rear-guard had crossed, and made a hasty 
attack. But on rushing through a marsh and wood, 
he was astonished to see Cornwallis's whole army 
before him. 

It was a critical situation, but Wayne, conceiving 
that the boldest was the best course under the circum- 
stances, impetuously led his small force, about eight 
hundred in number, to the attack. Some sharp and 
close firing ensued, in which he lost more than a 
hundred men, but his bold assault enabled him to draw 
off the rest in safety, under cover of the wood. 
Cornwallis looked on the attack as a feint, in order to 
draw him into an ambuscade, and would not let his 
men pursue. 

After the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, 



64 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Washington sent Wayne to Georgia, where the enemy 
was making trouble. Taking command of the forces 
there, he soon had the British shut up in Savannah, 
and kept them there until the treaty of peace was 
signed. The Georgia legislature rewarded him with 
thanks and a farm, on which he lived for some years. 
As already stated, they rewarded General Greene in 
the same way. 

Wayne, being given the brevet rank of major-gen- 
eral, retired to private life till 1793, his only public 
service in those years being in the Pennsylvania con- 
vention that ratified the Constitution of the United 
States. In the year named new military work was cut 
out for him. The western Indians had long been 
making trouble, and between 1783 and 1790 fifteen 
hundred soldiers were killed by them near the Ohio. 
General Harmar was sent against them, but met with 
a severe repulse. Then General St. Clair, governor of 
the Northwest Territory, led a force of two thousand 
men into the field. He was ambushed by the Indians, 
and suffered much more severely than Harmar had 
done. In this dilemma, President Washington, know- 
ing that their success would embolden the savages to 
still more murders, and having had enough of blunders, 
selected Wayne to lead an expedition against them. 

He had the right man for the work. Wayne, profit- 
ing by the mistakes of Harmar and St. Clair, raised 
a large force, went forward deliberately, and took every 
precaution against surprise, all the skilled woodcraft 
of the red men failing to deceive him. His plan was to 
occupy their country by a chain of posts, and he 
wintered at a wilderness post called Greenville, it 
being the summer of 1794 before he was prepared to 
strike. Then, on August 20, he met the savages at 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 65 

Fallen Timbers, near where Toledo now stands, rushed 
their camp as he had done Stony Point years before, 
and so utterly defeated them that they gave no serious 
trouble for years afterwards. As some of the tribes 
continued in arms, he laid waste their country and built 
forts to hold them in awe. A year later the chiefs of 
the tribes came humbly in and signed a treaty of peace, 
by which they ceded to the government an immense 
tract of land, lying in Indiana and Michigan. 

The gallant Wayne was now near the end of his 
career. During his return to the East, after completing 
his work among the Indians, he was taken sick, and 
died in a hut on Presque Isle, Lake Erie, on the 
15th of December, 1796. He was buried on the lake 
shore, but some years later his remains were interred 
at Radnor, Pa., and a handsome monument was erected 
over them in 1809 by the Society of the Cincinnati. 



BENJAMIN LINCOLN, THE RECEIVER OF 
THE SWORD OF CORNWALLIS 

Benjamin Lincoln, one of the leading generals 
of the Revolution, spent his first forty years of life 
on a Massachusetts farm, being born at Hingham, 
in that colony, January 23, 1733. He did not quite 
confine himself to the tilling of the earth, for he was 
several times elected to the legislature, was a member 
of the provisional congress of Massachusetts, and 
was a colonel of militia when the Revolution began. 
As such he was active in organizing the State troops 
and aiding in the siege of Boston. Massachusetts in 
1776 gave him the rank of brigadier-general, and in 
February, 1777, at the suggestion of General Wash- 
ington, he was appointed by Congress a major-general 
in the regular army. This rapid promotion was a just 
reward for his military merit, which Washington was 
quick to recognize. 

His first notable service was in June, 1776, when he 
commanded the expedition which cleared the harbor 
of Boston of British vessels. Thence he marched in 
October with a body of militia to New York, rein- 
forcing Washington after his defeat on Long Island. 
For several months he commanded at intervals a di- 
vision or a detachment of Washington's army, occupy- 
ing positions in which courage, vigilance and caution 
were strongly demanded. 

On one occasion, when in command of about five 
hundred men in an outpost position near Bound Brook, 
N. J., his patrols neglected their duty and permitted 
66 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 67 

a large body of the enemy to approach without dis- 
covery within two hundred yards of his quarters. 
Peril of capture was imminent. He had barely time to 
leave the house and spring upon his horse before the 
British swarmed around it. He succeeded in leading 
off his troops in the face of the enemy, though sixty 
of them were killed and wounded on the field. One of 
his aides was captured and his baggage and papers 
fell into the hands of the enemy, as also three small 
pieces of artillery. 

In July, 1777, Washington sent Lincoln north to the 
army under General Schuyler, then engaged in the 
task of opposing General Burgoyne in his southward 
march from Canada to the Hudson River. Taking his 
station at Manchester, Vermont, he organized the New 
England militia as they arrived and engaged in a series 
of operations in the rear of the British army. 

A detachment of five hundred men, under Colonel 
Brown, on the 13th of September, surprised the enemy 
at the Lake George landing, seized two hundred boats, 
and liberated a hundred American prisoners. Nearly 
three hundred of the enemy were taken prisoners, while 
Brown lost eight men killed and wounded. This 
successful enterprise in Burgoyne's rear was of great 
importance and contributed greatly to the glorious 
American victory. 

Detaching other parties to work on the British line 
of communications, Lincoln now joined the main army, 
then under General Gates, to whom he became the 
second in command. He took an active part in the 
operations leading to the defeat and capture of the 
British army, but in the sanguinary conflict at Bemis's 
Heights, on October 7, met with a disastrous mishap. 

At one o'clock in the morning General Lincoln 



68 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

marched with his division to relieve the troops that had 
been engaged and to occupy the battle ground, the 
enemy having retreated. In this duty he had occasion 
to ride forward to reconnoitre, when an unexpected 
movement of the enemy brought him suddenly within 
musket shot of their lines. Before he could withdraw 
a volley was poured upon him and his staff, he 
receiving a dangerous wound by which the bones of 
his leg were badly fractured. 

He was carried from the field and for some time it 
was feared he would lose his leg. For several months 
he lay in the hospital at Albany and it became necessary 
to remove a considerable portion of the main bone. 
His firmness and composure under this painful opera- 
tion, in those days before anaesthetics were known, 
were phenomenal. Colonel Rice, one of his aides, 
says: 

" I have known him, during the most painful opera- 
tions by the surgeons, while bystanders were frequently 
obliged to leave the room, to entertain us with some 
pleasant anecdote or story, and draw forth a smile 
from his friends." 

For several years the wound continued in an 
ulcerated state, and its final result was a shortening of 
the limb, which left him permanently lame. 

Lincoln's wound kept him out of service for the 
greater part of a year, it being August, 1778, before he 
was in condition to rejoin the army. His coming was 
a pleasure and in some sense a relief to General 
Washington, who esteemed him as a man and had a 
high opinion of his talent as a soldier. He was in need 
of some one to command in the South, which was just 
then threatened by the British, and in Lincoln he saw 
the man for the piace. Congress agreed with him 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 69 

in opinion and the newly recovered general was sent 
to command in chief the Southern department. 

It was a difficult task. Opposed to him there were 
veteran troops and officers of experience, but on his 
arrival at Charleston, in December, 1778, he found 
himself without an army and without supplies. The 
one had to be made and the other collected, and the 
whole department put in a state of defence. Only a 
man of unusual energy and ability could have suc- 
ceeded, in view of the formidable obstacles which the 
new commander had before him. 

The British forces were already in motion. About 
the 28th of December General Prevost, with a fleet 
and some three thousand troops, arrived off Savannah, 
of which he took possession after routing a small body 
of Americans under General Howe. General Lincoln 
made all haste to face the enemy with what troops he 
had collected, taking post on the river about twenty 
miles from the city, but it was late in February before 
he was strong enough to begin oflfensive operations. 

In April he marched to Augusta for the protection 
of upper Georgia, but learning that Prevost had taken 
advantage of his absence to march on Charleston, he 
hastened in that direction. On reaching its vicinity 
he found that the enemy had withdrawn from before it 
the previous night, but had left a body of troops 
intrenched at Stone Ferry. These Lincoln attacked, 
and a hot contest ensued, in which each party lost 
about one hundred and sixty men. But the works 
proved too strong and his artillery too light, and 
learning that a British reinforcement was at hand, 
Lincoln withdrew. 

The momentous event of General Lincoln's com- 
mand in the South was the unsuccessful and sanguin- 



70 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

ary attack upon Savannah in October, 1779. Count 
D'Estaing was in the vicinity with a French fleet and 
three thousand troops, and Lincoln joined the latter 
with about one thousand men, with the purpose of 
seeking to regain the city. 

Fortunately for Prevost, he was reinforced and felt 
strong enough to attempt a defence of the place, but 
the allied army of Americans and French began a 
regular siege, with strong hopes of success. As it 
proved, however, the cannonade failed to produce the 
effect desired and, as the Count could not stay long 
on the coast, an assault was determined upon. 

This took place in the early morning of October 9th, 
D'Estaing and Lincoln leading their united troops. A 
second column led by Count Dillon missed its route in 
the darkness, and the intended co-operation failed. 
The allies rushed forward through a terrible fire from 
the enemy, forcing the abatis and planting two stand- 
ards on the parapet, but here they met the garrison 
massed in overpowering force and were driven back 
with heavy loss. In this unsuccessful attack the 
French lost seven hundred, the Americans two hun- 
dred and forty men. Among the slain was the brave 
Polish soldier, Count Pulaski. 

The capture of Savannah proving hopeless, Lincoln 
sought to put Charleston in a state of defence, though 
Congress failed to send him all the reinforcements and 
supplies he demanded. General Clinton appeared with 
a fleet and army from New York in February, 1780, 
landed a powerful force, and on the 30th of March 
encamped before the American lines. 

A successful defence of the city, in view of the great 
superiority of the British forces, seemed impossible, 
but Lincoln decided to make the attempt, having what 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 71 

he thought good hopes of receiving reinforcements. 
These did not come and he was obHged to defend him- 
self with inadequate forces. The enemy began a siege, 
and on the loth of April summoned the garrison to an 
unconditional surrender. This was promptly refused 
and both sides opened a heavy cannonade, which was 
continued till May 11. By this time the enemy had 
completed his third parallel and the situation of the 
defenders had become hopeless. A second demand 
for surrender was made and Lincoln felt obliged to 
capitulate. 

General Lincoln's career was an unfortunate one. 
Obliged to contend with insufficient forces against a 
strong position at Savannah and an overwhelming 
enemy at Charleston, failure and defeat attended his 
eflforts, but he retained the confidence of those in 
authority and the esteem of the army, and was looked 
upon as a brave and able soldier. 

Exchanged in the spring of 1781, he joined Washing- 
ton on the Hudson, and took an active part in the siege 
of Yorktown and the final British defeat. In the arti- 
cles of capitulation, the British were given the same 
terms as they had given the Americans at Charleston, 
and Lincoln was selected by Washington to receive 
the sword of Cornwallis as a recompense for having 
had to give up his own. 

With the remainder of General Lincoln's career we 
must deal very briefly. He served the Government as 
Secretary of War from 1781 to 1783, and in 1787 was 
selected to command against what was known as the 
Shay Rebellion in Massachusetts. This he speedily put 
down, almost without bloodshed. He acted after- 
wards in several public positions, and died in his 
native town of Hingham, May 9, 1810. 



72 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

It may be of interest to complete this story with an 
anecdote of an amusing character in which General 
Lincoln was incidentally concerned. While at Purys- 
burg, on the Savannah River, a soldier named Pick- 
ling, who had several times attempted to desert, was 
sentenced to be hanged. As it happened, the rope 
broke twice and a cry for mercy was raised in the 
ranks. The general being applied to said, " Let him 
run. I thought he looked like a scape-gallows." He 
gave orders that the fellow should be drummed out 
of camp and threatened with death if he ever attempted 
to return. 

Meanwhile the surgeon-general had sought his 
quarters, under the impression that Pickling was 
quietly reposing in his grave. Midnight found him 
busily writing, when, hearing a footstep, he looked up 
and saw before him the miserable wretch whom he 
supposed dead and buried. He sprang up hastily in 
alarm, thinking that a spectre stood before him. 

" Whence come you ? What do you want with me ?" 
he ejaculated. " Were you not hanged this morning?" 

" Yes," said the man in a hollow voice, *' I am the 
poor wretch that was hanged." 

" Keep your distance ! Tell me what brings you 
here," cried the scared surgeon. 

" I am here to beg for food. I am no ghost, doctor. 
The rope broke twice and the general pardoned me." 

" Oh, if that is the case," said the relieved surgeon, 
" eat and be welcome ; but the next time you are 
hanged do not intrude into the apartment of one who 
has every right to suppose you an inmate of the tomb." 



DANIEL MORGAN, THE RIFLEMAN OF 
THE REVOLUTION 

During the disastrous campaign of the self-willed 
General Braddock against the French and Indians in 
1755, there was in his army a young Virginia wagoner 
of hasty temper and independent spirit, who was little 
inclined to submit to military discipline. Though a 
boy of nineteen, he was a man in strength and spirit, 
and when a British officer insulted him he promptly 
knocked him down. This was an offence of the deep- 
est dye and the hot-tempered youth was sentenced to 
the inhuman punishment of five hundred lashes. 

The lashes were administered by the drummer of the 
corps. The unlucky culprit was by name Daniel Mor- 
gan, a name destined to become much better known. 
The lashes may not have been heavily laid on, for he 
had the composure to count them, and always asserted 
that the drummer was one short in his count, adding 
jestingly that " George the Third still owed him one 
lash." He got ample satisfaction out of the British 
for the four hundred and ninety-nine in Revolutionary 
times, though it is to his credit that the British officers 
who fell into his hands as prisoners were always 
kindly and generously treated. He did not hold them re- 
sponsible for the cruelty of Braddock and his lieutenant. 

Daniel Morgan was born in New Jersey in 1736, of 
parents so poor that he got no education and was 
obliged to work as a day laborer. This he continued after 
his removal to Virginia in 1755, afterwards becoming 
a wagoner, and it seems to have been in this capacity 

73 



74 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

that he took part in Braddock's campaign. Later on he 
served in the miHta, and in 1758 was made an ensign. 

After his return home to the village of Berrystown, 
he was fond of wild adventure and had some narrow 
escapes from the Indians. He was so pugnacious that 
he was frequently engaged in quarrels, and became 
notorious as a boxer and fighter. So much indeed was 
he given to pugilistic encounters, that the village be- 
came known, from his exhibits of pugnacity, by the 
name of Battletown. 

Morgan was often overmatched in these fights, but 
his unconquerable spirit usually brought him out vic- 
torious. He never knew when he was whipped, and 
would return again and again to the contest until he 
rarely failed to defeat his antagonist. In after years, 
when his contests were on the battle-field, the same 
spirit animated him. Defeat he seldom knew, and 
when he did his retreat was sullen, stern, and dan- 
gerous. This the notorious Colonel Tarleton learned 
to his sorrow. 

Ey I775> when the first shots of the Revolution 
were fired, Morgan had married and was cultivating a 
farm, which he had purchased in Frederick County, 
Virginia. Patriotism at once impelled him to the front. 
A rifle company was raised in the vicinity, Morgan was 
chosen as its captain, and he marched away in haste to 
join the army then besieging Boston. He wanted to 
repay the lash which he owed George the Third. 

By order of Washington, the commander-in-chief, 
Morgan and his men soon after joined the dis- 
astrous expedition against Quebec, under Arnold and 
Montgomery, and took part in the bold attempt to 
storm that fortress, in which Arnold was wounded 
and Montgomery fell dead. Morgan's daring valor 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 75 

was so marked that it attracted the admiring attention 
of the defenders. He was in the assaihng column 
led by Benedict Arnold, and when that officer was 
wounded and was being carried from the field, Morgan 
took the lead. Rushing impetuously forward, he 
broke with his men through the first and second bar- 
riers of defence. Victory seemed almost within his 
grasp. But the fall of Montgomery at this critical 
moment changed the aspect of aflfairs, the garrison 
took advantage of the confusion that followed to repel 
the assailants, and Morgan was among those who fell 
into their hands as prisoners. 

Morgan's gallantry during the siege won him 
respect and not a little distinction as a prisoner. One 
British officer, indeed, sought to win his valuable ser- 
vices for the royal army by offering him the position 
of colonel, but the patriot rifleman hotly repelled the 
tempter, bidding him " never again to insult him in his 
misfortunes by an offer which plainly implied that he 
thought him a villain." After that, no one ventured to 
tempt him to treason. 

Morgan was exchanged in 1776 and rejoined the 
army, being now, on Washington's recommendation, 
raised to the rank of colonel. He was placed at the 
head of a select rifle corps, in command of which, on 
various occasions, he attacked the enemy with terrible 
effect. His men, skilled sharpshooters, were the most 
dangerous in the American service, and to confront 
them in the field was sure death to many of the 
British officers. 

He was especially active in the campaign against 
General Burgoyne, his exertions and the brilliant ser- 
vices of his men aiding effectively in the overthrow 
of the Bvirgoyne expedition. To him and his men 



76 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

much of the glory of the capture of the British army 
belonged, but General Gates was so grossly unjust that 
he did not even mention him in his despatches. The 
cause of this is said to have been the following : 

It is well known that Gates, intoxicated by his suc- 
cess, began to intrigue for the removal of Washington, 
He broached the subject to Morgan in a private con- 
versation, telling him that the army was greatly 
dissatisfied with Washington's leadership, that his 
reputation was rapidly declining, and that several 
prominent officers had threatened to resign unless a 
new commander-in-chief were appointed. 

Morgan's impatience barely permitted Gates to reach 
the end of his remarks, and he immediately broke out 
with stern indignation : " Sir, I have one favor to 
ask. Never again mention to me this hateful subject. 
Under no other man than General Washington, as 
commander-in-chief, will I ever serve." 

This ended all intimacy between Gates and Morgan. 
The general gave a dinner a few days later to the 
principal British officers and to some of the American, 
but Morgan was left out of the list of guests. While 
the dinner was proceeding official business required 
Morgan to communicate with Gates, but as soon as he 
had completed his business he withdrew. His name 
was not announced, but some of the British officers, 
perceiving from his dress that he was of high rank, 
inquired his name. When told that he was Colonel 
Morgan, commander of the rifle corps, a number of 
them left the table, followed him from the room, and 
introduced themselves to him, expressing warm appre- 
ciation of his skill and valor. 

From Saratoga Morgan made his way to Washing- 
ton's camp at Valley Forge, and continued with him 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 77 

till June, 1779, when, his health being greatly shattered, 
he resigned his command and sought his family and 
farm. Here he remained until after General Gates had 
been appointed to the command of the Southern army. 
Gates called upon him and requested his services in his 
new duty, but Morgan's indignation still rankled 
deeply and he spoke his feelings very plainly in regard 
to the treatment he had received. Motives of public 
good might influence him, he said, but friendship 
could not exist for one from whom he had experienced 
only neglect and injustice. 

A few weeks later Congress promoted Colonel Mor- 
gan to the rank of brigadier-general, and at their 
request he set out to join the army of General Gates. 
He was not obliged to serve under his enemy. When 
he reached the Carolinas there was nothing that could 
be called an army to join. The battle of Camden had 
been fought, the army was scattered like leaves before 
the wind, and Gates was a fugitive without a soldier 
to keep him company. 

It was not until after General Greene took the place 
of Gates and brought the scattered soldiers together 
again that the patriot forces made any show in the 
South, beyond the work of Marion and other partisan 
commanders and of the brave Tennesseans at King's 
Mountain. But early in 1781 Morgan had an oppor- 
tunity for the greatest deed in his career, the exploit 
which has made him famous in American history. 

General Greene dispatched him with four hundred 
Continentals, Colonel Washington's force of dragoons, 
and a small number of militia, amounting to about 
six hundred men in all, to take position on the left of 
the British army under Lord Cornwallis, he taking 
post himself about seventy railes to the right. 



78 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

The movement of Morgan seemed to Cornwall is 
directed against the British posts at Ninety-Six and 
Augusta, and he sent Colonel Tarleton against him 
with a force of horse and foot nearly a thousand 
strong. He was ordered, if possible, to bring Morgan 
to battle, a command much to the taste of the warlike 
Tarleton, especially as he knew that he had much 
the stronger force. When aware of his menacing 
approach Morgan fell back rapidly. But retreat was 
not to his taste, and, being reinforced by a body of 
militia, and full of confidence in the valor of his 
regulars, he halted on the night of January i6 at a 
place called Cowpens, resolved to give Tarleton a 
chance to fight, if he wished. 

Tarleton was following with the utmost speed, and 
was doubtless highly gratified in finding the Americans 
at bay. With his well-trained infantry and strong 
body of cavalry, he fancied that it would be a light 
task to dispose of Morgan and his men, half militia 
as they were. On the morning of January 17 the two 
armies came face to face. The chances seemed 
sadly against the Americans. Tarleton had every 
advantage, in point of ground, cavalry, and numbers, 
and of the two pieces of artillery he had brought. But 
Morgan faced him undauntedly and drew up his 
men in a position which military critics look upon as 
masterly. Two light parties of militia were posted in 
front, with orders to feel the enemy and fall back, firing 
as they did so, to the main line of militia under General 
Perkins. Back of this was a strong line of Continentals 
and militia, under Colonel Howard. The cavalry, 
under Colonel Washington, were held in reserve. 

The conflict took place as Morgan had designed, 
the light troops and .front line delivering their fire 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 79 

and falling back when heavily pressed on the Conti- 
nentals, who held their own with unyielding firmness. 
But a chance event threatened the Americans with 
defeat. Colonel Howard, his flank being threatened, 
ordered his right company to change its front. Mis- 
taking the order, the company fell back and the whole 
line began to retire. The moment was critical but 
Morgan proved equal to the situation. He ordered the 
men to retreat to the cavalry, which was successfully 
done, and a new position was thus taken up in the 
midst of the battle. 

The British, thinking that their foes were breaking 
up in dismay, rushed forward in disorderly haste, but 
were greeted as they drew near by a murderous fire 
from Howard's new formed troops. The unexpected 
volley staggered them and caused them to recoil in con- 
fusion, and Howard seized the opportunity to charge 
with the bayonet, while the militia on the wings poured 
a sharp shower of bullets into their ranks. This was 
far more than they had bargained for and they broke 
and fled. 

Colonel Washington saw that the moment to act 
had come, and charged the British cavalry, more than 
three times his number, so impetuously, that they, too, 
broke and sought safety in flight. The whole British 
force was now in disorderly retreat, closely pressed 
by the victorious Americans, Tarleton himself receiv- 
ing a wound from Colonel Washington's sword as he 
rode hastily away. The pursuit continued for twenty 
miles, nearly all the British infantry being killed or 
taken, the cavalry badly cut up, the artillery and 
nearly all the arms and wagons captured. Tarleton 
burned his own baggage to save it from capture. In 
this brilliant exploit Morgan lo^t only ten men killed 



8o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

and sixty wounded. It was the most spectacular 
victory of the war. 

Knowing that Cornwallis would soon be in motion 
with his whole army to retrieve this disaster to the 
doughty Tarleton, Morgan hastened to cross the 
Catawba with his prisoners and spoils. Fortunately 
heavy rains just afterwards swelled the river, and when 
Cornwallis reached its banks he was forced to halt 
for several days. Morgan continued his retreat to the 
Yadkin, which was also swollen with mountain rains 
just after he crossed, and the impatient Cornwallis 
was again delayed. 

General Greene was meanwhile hastening to Mor- 
gan's aid and the two forces came together on Febru- 
ary 9 at Guilford Court-House, in North Carolina, 
Cornwallis being then twenty-five miles distant. The 
Americans were not in condition to face his strong 
forces and the retreat continued, Cornwallis being 
drawn in the end to the borders of Virginia, where the 
river Dan ran between the two armies. Such was the 
brilliant retreat already spoken of in our sketch of Gen- 
eral Greene. It led Cornwallis hundreds of miles from 
his base, and brought him into a position of danger 
from which he did not find it easy to escape. 

The brave Morgan was now near the end of his 
military career. Frequent and severe attacks of rheu- 
matism soon after forced him to retire from the army 
and he withdrew to private life on his Virginia farm. 
The remainder of his story is soon told. He left his 
farm in 1794 to take part in the expedition to suppress 
the Whiskey Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, 
and he was elected to Congress in 1795, serving there 
as a Federalist till 1799. He settled at Winchester, 
Va., in 1800, and died there on tbe 6th of July, i8d2. 



HENRY LEE, THE "LIGHT-HORSE 
HARRY" OF '76 

In the youthful correspondence of George Washing- 
ton, then a susceptible young man, he speaks of a 
" lowland beauty " with whom he had fallen in love 
but who would have none of him. A more attractive 
youth of the illustrious Virginia family of the Lees 
had won her maiden heart and she accepted his hand. 
Twenty years later the son of this " lowland beauty " 
was captain of a troop of light horse under Washing- 
ton's command, and by his daring and alertness during 
the war of the Revolution won the popular title of 
" Light-Horse Harry." In his later years he had the 
honor of delivering the funeral oration over his old 
commander and of applying to Washington a phrase 
which has become historical. It is of this dashing 
cavalry leader that we have next to speak. 

Henry Lee was born in Leesylvania, Virginia, Jan- 
uary 29, 1756. Sent to the College of New Jersey to 
be educated, he graduated in 1773, and was on the 
point of completing his studies by a tour in Europe 
when the excited state of the country and the immi- 
nent danger of war with England caused him to pause. 
An ardent patriot, he followed with boyish enthusiasm 
the trend of events, and when the tocsin of war was 
sounded in 1775 he was one of the first to respond. 

Then just past his nineteenth year, he went ardently 

to work to raise a troop of " light horse," was quickly 

afterwards made captain in Colonel Bland's legion, and 

in 1777, at the age of twenty-one, became a member of 

6 81 



82 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Washington's army. He soon showed an alertness and 
vigor which Washington highly appreciated and his 
gallantry in battle won him the rank of major in 
January, 1778. This gave him the command of two 
troops, to which he soon added a third troop and a 
company of infantry, forming an independent partisan 
corps known as Lee's Legion. Admired for his dash- 
ing courage, and a favorite in the army, some one gave 
him the sobriquet of " Light-Horse Harry," a title 
of distinction which ever afterwards clung to him. 

The duty of Lee and his men was to hang on the 
flank of the British army and annoy them in every 
possible way, whether on the march or in camp. This 
was done in a manner that won him high distinction. 
His most brilliant exploit came in August, 1779, 
shortly after Anthony Wayne's daring capture of Stony 
Point. The purpose of this movement was to show 
Washington's alertness to the British commanders at 
New York and draw them back from their invasion of 
Connecticut. Immediately afterwards he gave them a 
second example of his vigilance, of which Major Lee 
was the hero. 

At a point on the site of the present Jersey City, 
opposite New York, a long, low neck of land known 
as Paulus Hook stretched out into the Hudson River. 
A sandy isthmus connected it to the main land, across 
which flowed a barely fordable creek. This narrow 
peninsula had been strongly fortified by the British. 
Within the line of the creek a deep ditch had been 
dug across the sandy neck, passable only by a draw- 
bridge. Farther in two intrenchments had been raised, 
and the place was garrisoned by a force of five hundred 
men. 

The commander of this stronghold and his men, 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 83 

trusting to the strength of their works and the distance 
of the Americans, had grown somewhat careless. This 
the active Major Lee discovered and made known to 
Washington, volunteering to attempt to take the fort 
by surprise. There was no advantage to be gained by 
this. The fort could not be held for a day even if 
taken. It lay under the guns of the British fleet in the 
Hudson. But its capture would have a strong moral 
effect alike in alarming the enemy and in encouraging 
the patriots at home, and Washington readily gave Lee 
the privilege of making the attempt. 

The time fixed for the perilous enterprise was the 
night of August 18, 1779, three hundred picked men 
being chosen for the daring exploit. During the day 
Lee succeeded in concealing his men without discovery 
in the vicinity of the works, and when the night had 
sufficiently advanced led them to the creek, which was 
crossed without difficulty or alarm to the enemy. 

By good fortune a foraging party had been sent 
out from the fort that day, and the sentinels mistook 
the men they saw approaching for the returning fora- 
gers. Favored by this mistake the Americans seized 
and crossed the drawbridge without their identity 
being discovered, and by the time the sentinels learned 
their mistake the alert stormers were swarming 
into the intrenchments. In a twinkling they were 
masters of the fort, having taken it with as impetuous 
a dash as that which made Wayne master of Stony 
Point, only two or three men being lost in the enter- 
prise. Of the garrison a number fell and one hundred 
and fifty-nine were taken prisoners, the remainder, 
with their commander, escaping to a blockhouse on 
the extremity of the fort. 

Lee had no time to seek their capture. The firing 



84 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

had given the alarm to the ships in the stream and the 
forts on the New York side, and a hasty withdrawal 
was necessary. But the prisoners were taken with 
them and carried in safety to the highlands. The skill 
and daring shown in this exploit in the very teeth of 
the British army, added greatly to the reputation of 
" Light-Horse Harry," and Congress rewarded him 
for his brilliant enterprise by voting him a gold medal. 

In the following year Lee attempted an exploit 
which, if successful, would have added immensely to 
his reputation, no less a one than the capture of the 
traitor, Benedict Arnold, in the midst of the British 
army in New York. Washington had learned, through 
his spies in New York, that Arnold was occupying 
quarters near the river, with no precautions against 
danger, of which he did not dream. He thought it 
possible to seize him and carry him away from the 
midst of his friends, if a sufficiently shrewd agent 
could be found to manipulate the work. 

Washington confided his project to Lee, asking him 
if he knew a man suitable for the delicate task. Lee 
suggested his sergeant-major, John Champe, a man of 
the greatest courage and persistence, of few words 
and a high sense of honor, safe to trust with any secret, 
and the most capable man he could think of for the 
work in view. The point to be overcome was his high 
sense of military honor. He must appear to desert and 
that he would object to most seriously. Lee, however, 
oflfered to see what could be done with him. 

His task was a difficult one. Champe vigorously 
refused even to appear a traitor to his country and to 
win the scorn and hatred of his fellows by a show of 
desertion. Lee's powers of persuasion were almost 
exhausted before the worthy fellow would consent to 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 85 

make the effort. And then a mischance came near to 
spoiUng the whole project. Champe had hardly set 
out, at eleven o'clock at night, before he was seen and 
challenged by a patrol. He put his spurs to his horse 
and fled at full speed and the patrol hastened to report 
the incident. 

Captain Carnes, to whom the story was told, hurried 
to Lee's quarters with the news that a cavalryman 
had deserted and asked for orders to pursue him. Lee 
affected to be half asleep and it took some time for the 
captain to make him understand. Then he would not 
believe the story, and the whole squadron had to be 
mustered to see if any one was missing. It was found 
that Champe was gone, and with him his arms, bag- 
gage and orderly book. 

Lee had no excuse for delaying the pursuit. If he 
had done so it would have aroused suspicion of his 
object. He gave the necessary orders, therefore, but 
by the time the party started Champe had been an hour 
on the road. Yet it happened that there had been a 
shower at sunset, softening the road so that the tracks 
of the fugitive were easily followed, and the pursuers 
were able to gain on him during the night. In the end 
he was pressed so closely that he was obliged to leap 
from his horse and into the river, swimming towards 
some vessels that lay some distance off-shore. A boat 
from these picked him up and the pursuers returned 
disappointed, to report their failure to Major Lee. 

We shall not here tell in detail the adventures of the 
seeming deserter in New York, since they have nothing 
to do with the biography of Henry Lee. It must 
suffice to say that he was well received, was enrolled 
into Arnold's corps of loyalists and deserters, and 
studied his habits. Arnold's garden extended nearly 



86 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

to the river and he was in the habit of walking in it at 
night. A plot was formed to seize and gag him and 
carry him to the river, where a boat was to be held in 
readiness. The river once crossed, help from Lee's 
corps would be at hand. Unluckily, on the very day 
fixed for the project, Arnold changed his quarters and 
the nearly successful plot failed. Soon after he set out 
on his expedition to Virginia, with Champe as an 
unwilling member of his force. The plotter had been 
caught in his own net. 

As soon as possible, the deserter again deserted and 
made his way into North Carolina, where he found 
his old corps, then in that State. Great was the sur- 
prise of his comrades when Sergeant-Major Champe 
appeared in their ranks and Lee received him with 
the utmost cordiality. But their surprise was turned to 
admiration when the whole story was told and they 
learned that the man whom they had cursed as a traitor 
was really a comrade to be proud of and esteem. 

Champe was richly rewarded, but was discharged 
from the service, since it was known that if taken 
prisoner he would be hanged. Seventeen years later, 
when Washington was preparing for a threatened war 
with the French, he inquired for John Champe, whom 
he desired to make a captain of infantry. To his 
sorrow he learned that the gallant sergeant-major was 
dead. 

Lee's mission in the South was to take part in the 
expedition of General Greene, sent there to operate 
against Lord CornwalHs. Promoted lieutenant-colonel, 
Lee reached Greene with his famous legion in January, 
1781. His command now consisted of about one hun- 
dred well mounted horse and one hundred and twenty 
infantry. He was quickly engaged in his old inde- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 87 

pendent work, covering Greene's rear in his famous 
retreat, and then seeking a lurking place in the moun- 
tain from which he harassed Tarleton and the loyalists. 

At Guilford Court-House Lee's legion proved more 
than a match for Tarleton's dragoons. When Greene 
afterwards marched south upon Camden, he despatched 
Lee and Marion on a secret expedition of great impor- 
tance. They began their work by the capture of Fort 
Watson, an exploit which forced Lord Rawdon to 
abandon and burn Camden. They next crossed the 
Santee and captured Fort Motte. The story of this 
interesting capture is given in our sketch of General 
Marion. 

Fort Granby, about thirty miles west of Fort Motte, 
was next taken, after a three days' siege, and the day 
after Lee marched to join Pickens, who was near 
Augusta, Georgia. After a short siege that place was 
captured, with Fort Cornwallis and three hundred 
men. These successes of Lee were of the greatest 
aid to General Greene in his purpose of loosening the 
British hold on the South. Lee afterwards took a 
prominent part in the siege of Fort Ninety-Six and the 
battle of Eutaw Springs, and on the retreat of the 
British to Charleston followed so closely as to capture 
a large number of Rawdon's rear-guard. 

He was present at the surrender of Cornwallis, and 
soon after resigned, becoming the master of Stratford 
House by marriage with his second cousin, Matilda 
Lee. In 1788 he was a member of the convention to 
ratify the Constitution, strongly supporting it, was 
elected Governor of Virginia in 1791 or 1792, and in 
1794, as major-general, commanded the force sent to 
repress the Whiskey Insurrection in Western Pennsyl- 
vania. He married a second time in 1798, his wife 



88 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

now being Ann Hill Carter. From this marriage was 
born the famous Robert Edward Lee, of the Civil War. 

General Lee was again to win fame, this time by a 
phrase. Elected to Congress in 1799, he was selected, 
after Washington's death, to pronounce a eulogy on 
his great commander. In this he characterized Wash- 
ington as " first in war, first in peace, and first in the 
hearts of his countrymen," a phrase which will not die 
while the memory of Washington lives. 

On June 27, 1812, while visiting William Harrison, 
editor of the Federal Republican, at Baltimore, the 
office of this paper was attacked by a mob, infuriated by 
something in its columns. Lee aided in the defence of 
the office and as a result was severely injured, being 
left for dead in the street. He never recovered from 
the effects of this injury. In 181 7 he went to the 
West Indies for his health and on his return stopped 
at the homestead of his old commander, General 
Greene, now occupied by the general's daughter, Mrs. 
Shaw. He died during this visit, in March, 1818. 



FRANCIS MARION, THE SWAMP FOX OF 
THE CAROLINAS 

In the history of our country there is no more 
attractive figure than that of Francis Marion, the 
renowned hero of romance and adventure. His ex- 
ploits form a story full of delight to all lovers of daring 
acts and skilled stratagems, of marvellous escapes and 
genius in partisan warfare. He had no rival in celerity 
of movement or in the art of concealment. Never once 
was he overtaken or traced to his hiding place, and 
so skilful was he in concealment that some of his 
own friends, well acquainted with his usual places 
of retreat, are said to have sought for days without 
finding him. Then at some unexpected point he would 
suddenly appear, pounce like an eagle upon the enemy, 
deal them a stinging blow and be away again before a 
superior force could reach him. An adept in the work 
of the scout and the partisan, he has ever been a favor- 
ite with lovers of the daring and romantic. 

The history of the Revolution contains many thrill- 
ing stories of Marion's exploits. A small man, short 
of stature and very light in weight, he always rode 
one of the swiftest and most powerful horses the South 
could produce. When in pursuit no one could escape 
him ; when in retreat no one could overtake him. His 
good steed saved him more than once from capture, 
of which we have a striking instance in the following 
story. 

Once, when pursued and nearly surrounded by a 
party of British dragoons, he leaped a roadside fence 

89 



90 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

into a cornfield. The dragoons followed and were close 
upon him. The field descended and was marshy at its 
lower side, there being here a ditch four feet wide and 
deep, while inside the ditch was a bank of mud on 
which stood a fence, the whole being over seven feet 
high. To leap this fence was Marion's only hope of 
escape, and its height seemed to make this impossible. 
The dragoons saw the dilemma he was in and pressed 
towards him, shouting and laughing in disdain and 
calling on him to surrender. 

Marion did not hesitate for a moment. Spurring 
his gallant horse, he rushed him at the fence. The 
noble animal seemed to recognize the strait his master 
was in, came up to the barrier in his finest style, and 
with a bound that seemed supernatural cleared the 
fence and the ditch and came down on his feet on the 
other side. Marion turned, fired his pistols without 
effect at his astounded pursuers, then, bidding them 
" good morning," wheeled his horse and vanished in 
triumph into a neighboring thicket, leaving them 
divided between admiration and chagrin. 

As to the band of Marion, the followers of this wild- 
wood hero, there is a story that clearly shows the kind 
of material with which he had to do his gallant deeds. 
In the summer of 1780 General Gates with his army 
had crossed the Pedee River and was marching to- 
wards Camden, South Carolina, where he was destined 
to meet with an annihilating defeat. On his way 
thither there rode into his ranks a volunteer detach- 
ment of such woe-begone aspect that the soldiers 
looked at them with astonishment and mirth. 

About twenty in all, they were a mosaic of whites 
and blacks, men and boys, their clothes in tatters, their 
equipment a burlesque on military smartness, their 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 91 

horses lean, half starved specimens of the war-charger. 
At their head rode a small, thin-faced man, modest- 
looking, but with a flash in his eye that admonished the 
soldiers not to laugh until behind his back. This was 
Marion and this was his band. Then but little known, 
he was soon to become the Robin Hood of warriors, 
the Swamp-Fox of romantic history. 

He offered some modest advice to Gates, but the 
latter was too full of conceit to be open to advice from 
this or any other quarter, and was glad enough to get 
rid of his unwelcome visitor by sending him on a scout- 
ing expedition in advance of the army, to watch the 
enemy and report upon his movements. This was the 
work for which Marion's men were best adapted and 
they rode gaily away. But before they went Governor 
Rutledge, who was with the army and who knew 
Marion's worth, raised him in rank from colonel to 
general, and gave him a commission for guerilla work 
among the swamps and forests of the South. 

Francis Marion was born near Georgetown, South 
Carolina, in 1732. A love for adventure was born in 
him, and at the age of sixteen we find him setting out 
in life as a sailor, on a vessel bound to the West Indies. 
On the way thither a gale of wind wrecked the vessel 
and the crew were forced to take to their boat without 
water or provisions, except a dog which had leaped into 
the boat and whose raw flesh supplied all the food they 
had for seven or eight days. Several of them died 
from hunger and exposure, young Marion being one of 
the few who escaped. 

This adventure gave him enough of sea life and he 
engaged in farming until 1759, when he took part as 
lieutenant in an expedition against the Cherokee In- 
dians, under Captain Moultrie. He comes into history 



92 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

again in 1775, when he was appointed a captain in the 
first corps of soldiers raised by South CaroHna for the 
war of the Revolution. In 1776, now a major, he served 
under his old commander Moultrie in the intrepid 
defence of Fort Moultrie against the British fleet. 
The British here got enough of South Carolina to last 
them for several years. 

Marion took part in the defence of Georgia in 1777, 
and as lieutenant-colonel was at Charleston when 
besieged by the British in 1780. Here, having broken 
his leg in an accident, he left the city and thus 
escaped being made a prisoner when the garrison 
surrendered. To avoid capture he was carried from 
place to place, but as soon as he was able to take 
the saddle he was in the field again. The British had 
by this time spread widely through South Carolina 
and held the State in an iron grip, and the only kind of 
warfare practicable was that which Marion undertook. 
Gathering about him a band at first containing only 
sixteen men, he crossed the Santee and began that 
system of bold attacks and swift escapes which gave 
so much trouble and annoyance to the foe. 

It was the chosen work of the Swamp-Fox to keep 
alive the fire of liberty in South Carolina and pave 
the way for the reconquest of the South. Marion was 
not alone in this patriotic duty: Sumter, Pickens and 
others were engaged in the same work. But he was 
the most daring, persistent and successful, and has 
become far the most famous of them all. 

His sixteen men soon grew to a larger corps, but it 
was constantly varying, now swelling, now sinking, 
never large. The swamps of the Pedee, which formed 
his chief abiding place, could not furnish shelter and 
food for any large body of men. In their thicket- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 95 

hidden depths he found plenty of hiding places, from 
which he could make rapid excursions against the 
foe in all directions, and in which safe shelter always 
awaited him. His men, like himself, were hardy, well 
seasoned fellows, used to a warm climate and marshy 
surroundings, bred to hardship and privation, and able 
to subsist and keep well in that sickly region where few 
not trained to the situation and mode of life could 
have retained health and strength. 

Marion's headquarters were on Snow's Island, at the 
point where Lynch's Creek flows into the Pedee. Here 
he found islands of high land in the midst of the reedy 
swamps, with an abundance of game and the forest 
for covering. Wet thicket and cane-brakes spread 
around, with paths known only to the partisans, who 
kept their secrets well. Within was noble woodland 
growth, equal to that haunted of old by Robin Hood 
and his men. splendid moss-laden trees, and dry grassy 
soil, where the horses fed in content and on which 
the men dwelt in wild freedom like a band of forest 
outlaws. 

There is a very interesting story about their mode of 
life, which has often been told but will bear telling 
again. A young British officer was sent from George- 
town under a flag of truce, to arrange with Marion 
about an exchange of prisoners. He was brought to 
the camp blindfolded, by way of devious paths through 
the swamps, and when the bandage was removed from 
his eyes he looked around with admiration and surprise 
on the magnificent woodland scene in which he found 
himself and at the ragged band who lay or lounged in 
rustic ease around. His surprise was doubled when 
he gazed on Marion, and instead of the burly giant his 
fancy had conceived saw before him a swarthy, smoke- 



94 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

dried little man, dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, 
that seemed more rags than attire. The group of 
sunburnt, yellow-legged fellows around, some roast- 
ing potatoes, some stretched out asleep on the green 
sward, could these be the men that had so often vexed 
and defied the British forces? 

He soon learned that this diminutive chap was the 
renowned Marion and quickly settled the business on 
which he came, the wildwood champion being willing 
enough to rid himself of his prisoners. The officer 
then signified his purpose to return. 

" Not so, my dear sir," said Marion. " It is our 
time for dining, and I hope you will give me the 
pleasure of your company at dinner." 

" I shall be delighted," said the officer politely, but 
he looked round with wondering eyes. Where were 
any of the essentials of a dinner, the board, the table- 
ware, the food? 

" We dine here in simple, woodland fashion, cap- 
tain," said Marion, with a smile. " Pray be seated. — 
Come, Tom," he called to one of the men, " bring us 
our dinner." 

Seating himself on a mossy log, he pointed to an 
opposite one for the officer. In a few minutes Tom 
appeared, coming from a fire of brushwood at a 
distance, and carrying on a large piece of bark some 
well roasted sweet potatoes. 

" Help yourself, captain," said Marion, taking up a 
brown-skinned potato from the platter, breaking it in 
half, and beginning to eat with a forest appetite. 

The surprised officer, a well-bred man, followed his 
example, though with more politeness than relish. He 
at length broke out into a hearty laugh. 

" I beg your pardon, general," he said. " I was 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 95 

thinking of the droll looks of some of my brother 
officers, if our government were to give them such a 
bill of fare as this." 

" I suppose, then, it is not equal to your usual style 
of dining?" 

" No, indeed. And I judge it must be a sort of 
Lenten repast with you. No doubt, you usually live 
much better." 

" Rather worse, usually," said Marion, " for often 
we do not get enough of these." 

" But then you probably make up in pay what you 
lack in provisions." 

" Not a cent, sir ; not a cent." 

" Good Heavens ! You must be in a bad box, indeed. 
I don't see how you stand it." 

" Why, captain," said Marion, smiling, " these things 
depend on feeling." 

When the captain returned to Georgetown he was 
in a thoughtful mood. To his superior officer he said : 

" Sir, I have seen an American general and his 
officers, serving without pay and almost without 
clothes, living on roots and drinking water: and all 
for liberty ! How can we ever succeed against men 
like these?" 

Of the exploits of Marion we can give but a few 
examples ; they were too many to be told in detail. 
He was constantly darting about, striking detached 
parties, cutting off wanderers, breaking up convoys, 
always appearing where least expected, dealing sharp 
blows in such quick succession and at such widely 
separated points that it seemed impossible that a single 
band could give all this trouble. Not a detachment or 
a convoy could go abroad without danger of being cut 
off by the alert Swamp-Fox. 



96 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

The annoyance grew so great that Colonel Wemyss, 
one of the best British cavalry leaders, was sent to 
try and take him by surprise during one of his distant 
raids. Wemyss got on his trail and hotly pursued 
him, but Marion led him such a dance, through grimy 
morasses and over deep streams, up into North Caro- 
lina and back again, always just beyond reach, that 
Wemyss at last gave up the chase in disgust, and 
sent out his men to harry the country. As soon as the 
pursuit ceased Marion, with only sixty men behind 
him, rode to the desolated district, where he found 
numbers of recruits among the incensed people. 
Quickly afterwards he fell on a large body of Tories 
near Georgetown and fairly cut them to pieces, while 
losing but a single man from his ranks. 

The British, more angered than ever, now sent 
Tarleton, the hard-riding marauder, to run him down 
and crush him, but Tarleton found that he had taken 
the hardest task of his life. He could ruin the country, 
but he could not catch Marion, though he felt the 
sharp bite of the Swamp-Fox at a dozen points. At 
length he too gave it up, swearing hotly against this 
persistent fellow, who " would not fight like a 
gentleman." 

In 1 78 1, another cavalry leader, Colonel Watson, 
took up the same task, with a force of five hundred 
men. Marion was now at Snow's Island, and as active 
as ever. One of his movements brought him unex- 
pectedly into contact with Watson and a fight ensued. 
Watson's field-pieces gave him the advantage and 
Marion was obliged to fall back. Reaching a bridge 
over Black River, he kept back the foe until he was able 
to burn the bridge and throw the stream between 
them. Then an odd sort of fight began. The two 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 97 

forces marched down the sides of the river firing 
across the water, for ten miles, until darkness ended the 
fight. For ten days Watson remained there, not able 
to get at Marion, and so annoyed by the constant 
attacks of his active foe, that to escape complete 
destruction, he was forced to make a midnight flight. 
Like Tarleton, he came to the decision that Marion 
" would not fight like a gentleman or a Christian." 

There is one other story of Marion's career, with 
which we must close. The mansion of Mrs. Rebecca 
Motte, a rich widow of South Carolina, had been 
taken possession of by the British and converted into 
a stronghold which they named Fort Motte. It was 
attacked in May, 1781, by Marion and Major Lee in 
conjunction. After some days of siege, word came 
that Lord Rawdon was approaching with a strong 
force. They must finish their work quickly or it 
would be too late. 

Lee determined to try and burn the house, whose 
roof was then very dry from several days of hot sun- 
shine. He suggested this to Mrs. Motte, not know- 
ing how she would like it. But the patriotic woman 
took it cheerfully and even oflfered to provide for the 
purpose a fine bow and arrows of East Indian make, 
which she possessed. 

Flaming arrows were shot at the roof and soon the 
shingles were in a blaze. The soldiers sent up to ex- 
tinguish the flames were driven back by fire from a 
field-piece. There was no hope for the garrison but to 
surrender, and this they did. The firing ceased, the 
flames were extinguished and an hour afterwards the 
victorious and captive officers were seated together at 
an ample repast at Mrs. Motte's table, over which that 
lady presided with the utmost grace and urbanity. 
7 



98 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Since then Mrs. Motte has been classed among the 
distinguished heroines of the Revolution. 

During the remainder of the war Marion was 
untiring in vigilance and activity. He rendered good 
service in the battle of Eutaw Springs, pursued the 
British in their retreat to Charleston, and took care 
that no detachments should be sent out from that 
city with impunity. He disbanded his brigade after 
the withdrawal of the British in 1782, taking a tender 
leave of his followers, who dearly loved their com- 
mander, and returned to his farm almost in a state of 
poverty. He was subsequently elected to the State 
Senate, and in 1790 was a member of the convention 
for framing a new State Constitution. He died in 
1795, South Carolina's most famous warrior. 



GEORGE ROGERS CLARK, THE WINNER 
OF THE NORTHWEST 

There were two brothers of the name of Clark, 
brave sons of Virginia, who won fame in the history 
of our country. One of these was Captain William 
Clark, who took part in the celebrated Lewis and 
Clark expedition, the first to cross the wide range of 
mountains and plains from the Mississippi River to 
the Pacific Ocean. The other was George Rogers 
Clark, an older brother of William. It is with his 
exploits that we are here concerned. 

George Rogers Clark was born in Albemarle 
County, Virginia, November 19, 1752. Like Wash- 
ington, he began his career as a land-surveyor, and 
like him also was soon engaged in military services, 
since he was captain of a company of militia in 
Governor Dunmore's war with the Indians in 1774. 
Before that time his love of adventure had led him 
to the wilderness of Kentucky, three years after 
Daniel Boone's first visit, and while it was still the 
" dark and bloody ground " of Indian warfare. He 
went there again in 1775. A few settlers had now 
made their homes there and for a short time Clark 
commanded a small body of them in their war with 
the Indians. 

In 1776 he returned to Kentucky, now determined 
to make that thinly-settled wilderness his home and he 
soon called together at Harrodsburg a convention of 
the people, by whose votes he and Gabriel Jones were 
elected members of the Virginia assembly. 

99 



loo HEROES OF THE ARMY 

He did not know whether they would be admitted 
to that aristocratic body, for the position of Kentucky 
was still an anomalous one and its people were looked 
upon as semibarbarous frontiersmen. They were cor- 
rect in supposing that the assembly would not open 
its doors to representatives of the Wild West, but 
Patrick Henry, who was then governor of Virginia, 
received them kindly, and took steps for the forma- 
tion of Kentucky into a county of Virginia. As such 
some provision for its defence was deemed necessary, 
and a supply of gunpowder was sent to Pittsburg and 
thence down the Ohio, reaching its destination after 
running the gauntlet of hostile Indians on both banks 
of the river. 

Meanwhile the war of the Revolution, which was 
proceeding actively in the East, began to make itself 
felt in the West. The Indians north of the Ohio had 
become murderously hostile and Clark was satisfied 
that the British garrisons at the forts in the West 
were instigating them to this dreadful work, supplying 
them with arms and ammunition and paying them for 
scalps. Clark, when assured that this was the case, 
determined to do what he could to stop it. 

There were three military posts — Detroit, on the 
lakes, and Vincennes and Kaskaskia, in the interior 
country, which were centres of the Indian incursions. 
Formerly French settlements, these now were under 
British control, and there was excellent reason to 
believe that their new masters were at the bottom 
of the cruel raids on the settlers. 

Major Clark, to give him the title which he now 
bore, believed that these forts could be captured, and 
bJ5 spirit of adventure led him to undertake the enter- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY lot 

prise. Hitherto, while the war had been going on in 
the East, he had been engaged in surveying, his leisure 
time being employed in hunting excursions with 
Boone and others of the settlers, but his ambition was 
now aroused in the interest of his struggling country. 

Making his way back to Virginia, he called on his 
former friend, Governor Henry, told him about his 
plan and how hopeful it was, and asked his aid in an 
expedition against the British forts. Patrick Henry, 
a stalwart patriot, was highly pleased with the plan, 
and knew enough of Clark to be satisfied that he 
would make a suitable leader. He therefore supplied 
him with the necessary funds, and commissioned him 
as colonel, instructing him to recruit four companies 
among the daring hunters and pioneers of the frontier. 
His orders were to " proceed to the defence of Ken- 
tucky," this being a ruse to keep his real purpose a 
secret. Clark made all haste in his work and in the 
spring of 1778 set off with one hundred and fifty men 
in boats down the Ohio. When about fifty miles above 
the river's mouth the party left their boats and started 
on a long and difficult wilderness journey towards 
Kaskaskia. 

On the 4th of July of that year, the second anni- 
versary of American independence, a merry dance was 
going on in the fort at that border settlement. It was 
thought so far away and so safe that its defence had 
been left to a French officer and a company of French 
soldiers, and these light-hearted fellows were dancing 
gayly away to the sounds of a fiddle and by the light 
of torches thrust into the chinks of the wall. On the 
floor lay an Indian, looking on with lazy eyes. 

Suddenly the savage sprang to his feet with a shrill 



102 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

war-whoop. He had seen a tall young man, dressed 
in a woodland garb that was evidently not French, 
enter the door, and in an instant suspected something 
wrong. The dancers huddled together with alarm 
as the wild cry broke out, some of them running for 
their guns. 

" Don't be scared. Go on with your dance," said the 
stranger quietly. " But remember that you are danc- 
ing under the rule of Virginia and not of England." 

As he spoke a number of men dressed like himself 
glided into the rooms, spread quickly about, and laid 
hands on the guns of the soldiers. The fort had been 
taken without a blow. The French officer, Rocheblave, 
was in bed while this was going on. But his wife was 
wide awake and was quick to learn what was afoot, 
and hastened to thrust his papers into the fire. 
Enough of them was found, however, to prove what 
Clark suspected, that the English were seeking to stir 
up the Indians against the settlers. The papers were 
sent to Virginia, and with them went Rocheblave and 
perhaps his wide-awake wife. 

The capture of Kaskaskia was but the beginning 
of Clark's enterprises. About one hundred and fifty 
miles to the east, in what is now the State of Indiana, 
was another fort called Vincennes. It lay on the 
Wabash River, far to the south of Detroit. 

Colonel Clark wanted this fort, too, but had not 
men enough to take it by force, so he tried the effect 
of stratagem. By the aid of a French priest he per- 
suaded the people of Vincennes that they would find 
the Americans better friends than the English. This 
they were ready enough to believe, for they had not 
much love for the English, who had conquered them 
not many years before. Persuaded by the priest, they 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 103 

forced the commander of the fort to surrender, hauled 
down the British flag and raised the stars and stripes, 
and Vincennes became an American fort. Colonel 
Clark went back to Kentucky, leaving only two men 
in charge of the fort, and thinking that he had won 
the Northwest for the Americans very easily. 

He might have known what he soon found out, that 
the British would not let themselves be driven out of 
the country in this easy fashion. When Colonel 
Hamilton, the English commander at Detroit, heard of 
what Clark had done, he led his men down to Vin- 
cennes and easily took back the fort with its garrison 
of two. He proposed the next spring to recapture 
Kaskaskia and then march south and drive the Ameri- 
can settlers out of Kentucky. Such was the disturbing 
news that reached Colonel Clark that winter. 

The tidings gave him great concern. He was in 
danger of losing all he had won. And this Colonel 
Hamilton was said to be the man who hired the Indians 
to murder the American settlers, so if he were left 
alone the dreadful work of the savages would go on 
worse than before. Something must be done quickly 
or it might be too late to do anything at all. 

But the task before the bold Colonel Clark was far 
worse than before. The winter was nearly over when 
the news reached him, and with it came the tidings 
that the Wabash River had risen and overflowed its 
banks and the country for hundreds of square miles 
was under water. Vincennes lay in the centre of a 
great shallow lake of chilly water and could only be 
reached by miles of wading. But Clark had to act 
quickly if he was to act at all. Hamilton had only 
eighty men with him and it was easy to raise twice 



I04 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

that many against him. Now was the time to strike, 
before he could be reinforced from Canada. 

Clark had no money to pay his men, but a merchant 
of St. Louis offered to lend him all he needed, so he got 
together his company of hardy Kentuckians and set 
out on his long and difficult journey. As the sturdy 
fellows, dressed in hunting garb and carrying their 
trusty rifles, trudged onward through wet woods and 
over soaking prairies, the heavens poured down rain 
day after day, and they had to dry and warm them- 
selves every night by blazing bivouac fires. 

When they reached the " drowned lands " of the 
Wabash it was still worse. Water spread everywhere 
and only by wading through this great lake could 
the fort be reached. There were miles of it to cross, 
now ankle-deep, now knee-deep, and in places waist- 
deep. And shivering water it was, for the freezing 
chill of winter had barely passed. No doubt there were 
faint hearts among them, but Colonel Clark led the 
way and his men followed, for they had confidence in 
his courage and ability. For nearly a week they 
trudged dismally onward, finding here and there 
islands of dry land to rest their limbs on by day or to 
build fires upon at night. Game was very scarce and 
their food ran short, so that for two days they had 
to go hungry. 

At the mouth of White River, where it enters 
the Wabash, they met Captain Rogers, who had been 
sent with forty men and two small cannon up stream 
to that point. Here they joined company, dragging 
or rowing the boat through the overflow. They had 
still the worst of their journey to make, for around the 
fort lay a lake of water four miles wide and deeper 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 105 

than any they had passed. Some of the men hesitated, 
but Colonel Clark sternly bade them to go on. 

" Yonder lies the fort," he said. " We have come too 
far to turn back. Follow me." He plunged into the 
cold water, telling one of his officers to shoot any man 
who refused to follow. His example and threat were 
enough ; they all plunged in. 

The tramp before them was a frightful one. Much 
of the water reached to their waists. Some of it came 
to their necks. Yet they trudged resolutely on, hold- 
ing their guns and powder above their heads to keep 
them dry. When dry land at length was reached some 
of the men were so worn out that they fell to the 
ground, and had to be raised and made to run up and 
down on the land till animation was restored. 

A night's rest was here taken and the next morning, 
February 19, 1779, they set out for the fort, crossing 
the river in a boat they found and soon coming near. 
Meeting a Frenchman, who stared at them as at men 
dropped from the skies, they sent him with a letter to 
Colonel Hamilton, telling him that they had come to 
take the fort and that he had better surrender and 
save trouble. 

The colonel was utterly astounded. Where had 
these men come from? That they had crossed those 
miles of icy water seemed impossible. But whoever 
they were, he had no notion of surrendering and sent 
back a defiance. Soon the fort was surrounded, 
Clark's two cannon were thundering at it, and the 
Kentucky sharpshooters were making havoc with their 
rifle balls. All day long and far into the night this 
work was kept up, the wooden stronghold being much 
the worse for the bombardment, and early the next 
morning Hamilton surrendered. He asked permission 



io6 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

to march back to Detroit, but this Clark refused, 
saying : 

" I will not again leave it in your power to spirit up 
the Indian nations to scalp men, women and children." 

Such was the outcome of this wonderful adventure, 
one of the strangest in American annals. Colonel 
Hamilton's papers showed that Clark was right and 
that he had been stirring up the Indians to their 
dreadful work. Even while the fight was going on 
some of these red demons came up with the scalps of 
white men and women to receive their pay. They 
received it in the form of bullets from the furious 
Kentuckians. Hamilton and his officers were sent as 
prisoners to Virginia, where they were confined in 
fetters for their work of murder. 

At the end of the war, which came a few years later, 
it was decided that all the land which each country 
then held should be theirs still. The English held 
Canada, and they would have held the great Northwest 
Territory if it had not been for George Rogers Clark. 
To him this country owes that splendid region, out of 
which several large States have since been made. 

This was not the end of Colonel Clark's work. A 
strong force of Canadians and Indians afterwards 
invaded Kentucky, and Clark retaliated by leading 
a thousand men into the Ohio country and destroying 
one of the Indian towns. In December, 1780, he made 
plans for the capture of Detroit, but the invasion of 
Virginia by the British prevented him from carrying 
them out. He was however made a brigadier-general, 
and in 1782, after a battle with the Indians at the Blue 
Licks, Kentucky, he marched against the Indians of 
the Miami and the Scioto, destroying five of their 
towns. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 107 

In 1782 he took part in an expedition against the 
Indians on the Wabash and about 1794 he accepted 
from Genet, the French minister to the United States, 
a commission as major-general in the French army, to 
conduct an expedition against the Spanish settlements 
on the Mississippi. Nothing came of this, and in 
later years infirm health put an end to General Clark's 
activity. He continued to live in feebleness and 
poverty, dying in his sixty-sixth year near Louisville, 
Kentucky, February 13, 1818. 



WINFIELD SCOTT, THE VICTOR AT 
NIAGARA AND IN MEXICO 

Through two of our country's wars, those with 
Great Britain in 1812-15 and with Mexico in 1847, 
Winfield Scott proved himself one of the ablest of 
soldiers, and his name stands high in the annals of 
military fame, as being for many years the most 
distinguished of American generals. He was a na- 
tive of the Old Dominion, being born near Peters- 
burg, Virginia, June 13, 1786. Of Scotch descent, he 
came from a family of soldiers, his grandfather being 
one of that brave band of Highlanders who sought to 
place Prince Charles, the grandson of James H., on the 
English throne. After the disastrous defeat of the 
Highlanders at Culloden, in which his elder brother 
was killed, he made his way to the safer land of 
America, becoming a lawyer in Virginia. His son 
William married Ann Mason, a lady of good Virginia 
family, Winfield Scott being the younger of their two 
sons. 

William Scott died when his son was five years old 
and the mother when he was seventeen. The boy 
meanwhile was sent to school in Richmond and after- 
wards entered William and Mary College, Virginia's 
oldest institute of education. Here he studied the law, 
and at twenty was admitted to the bar, but his early 
efforts at practice w^ere not profitable and he soon 
left the law for the army. 

Those were the days when English war vessels were 
seizing seamen on American merchant ships, on the 

108 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 109 

pretence of their being British subjects, an injustice 
that roused much warHke feeUng in this country. In 
1807, after the attack on the frigate " Chesapeake," 
President Jefferson issued a proclamation closing the 
ports of the United States against British warships, 
and young Scott volunteered in a troop of horse 
called out under this proclamation. 

In the following year the army was increased and 
Scott was appointed a captain in the artillery service. 
As such he was ordered in 1809 to New Orleans to join 
the division under General Wilkinson, whose duty it 
was to protect the frontiers of the new territory of 
Louisiana from British aggression. Here the youthful 
captain, who had not yet reached years of discretion, 
got himself into trouble through lack of wisdom. Wil- 
kinson had commanded in the Southwest at the time 
of the treasonable acts of Aaron Burr, and Scott openly 
gave vent to his opinion that Wilkinson had been con- 
nected with Burr in his conspiracy. 

For this indiscreet freedom of speech Scott was 
arrested, tried by court-martial for disrespect to his 
superior officer and punished by being suspended from 
the army for one year. It was a well-deserved punish- 
ment and taught him a useful lesson in military disci- 
pline. But as for his year of disgrace, he made excel- 
lent use of it, entering earnestly upon the study of 
military art and laying the foundation of that thorough 
knowledge of his profession for which he afterwards 
became distinguished. 

The war which had been long foreseen broke out in 
1812, and the young soldier, then twenty-six years of 
age, was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and stationed 
upon the Canada frontier. Here began the long record 
of his military service. 



no HEROES OF THE ARMY 

In October, 1812, an attack on the British forces at 
Queenstown Heights was planned and while the battle 
was in progress Scott crossed over from Lewistown 
to the field. Soon after Colonel Van Rensselaer, the 
American commander, was severely wounded and 
Scott succeeded him in command. By earnest exhorta- 
tions and daring leadership he gave his men such spirit 
that they drove back the enemy with heavy loss, and 
even after the British had been strongly reinforced the 
Americans held their grovmd. 

But at this critical juncture the main body of the 
Americans, who had not yet crossed the river, were 
seized with a panic and no persuasion could induce 
them to enter the boats. In consequence Scott, left 
unsupported, and outnumbered more than three to 
one, was obliged to surrender with the men under his 
immediate command, doing so with the honors of war. 
Thus his first military enterprise ended in failure, but 
through no fault of his. 

He was exchanged in the early part of 181 3 and, 
with the rank of colonel, joined General Dearborn's 
army, of which he was made adjutant-general. In 
May, after a desperate fight, in which he had braved 
the utmost perils, he stormed and captured Fort 
George. A piece of timber flung by an exploding 
magazine hurled him from his horse, but in an instant 
he was on his feet and leading his men in the charge, 
being the first to enter the fort, the flag of which he 
pulled down with his own hands. 

The anecdote is told that while he was a prisoner 
a British officer asked him if he had ever seen the 
Falls of Niagara. " Yes, from the American side," he 
replied. The officer rejoined, " You must have a suc- 
cessful fight before you can see them in all their 



HEROES OF THE ARMY iii 

grandeur " — the finest view being from the Canadian 
side. Scott, incensed by this slur, replied, " Sir, if it be 
your intention to insult me, honor should have 
prompted you first to return me my sword." 

This officer was among the prisoners taken at Fort 
George, and Scott treated him with marked attention 
and kindness, obtaining permission for him to return 
to England on parole. This generosity quite dis- 
armed the man, who humbly said to Scott : " Sir, I 
have owed you an apology. You have overwhelmed 
me with kindness. You can now at your leisure view 
the Falls in all their glory." 

Scott was made a brigadier-general in 1814 and 
placed in charge of a " camp of instruction " at Buffalo, 
where he thoroughly drilled three brigades of troops 
in the French system of tactics, then first introduced 
into America. His lessons proved of the highest value 
in the campaign that followed. Hitherto our troops 
had been little better than militia. Those under Scott 
now first gained a thorough military training. 

The advance was made early in July, the American 
army crossing the Niagara on the 3d and capturing 
Fort Erie. On the 5th took place the battle of Chip- 
pewa, which ended in General Riall and the British 
forces under him being driven across the Chippewa 
River. But the most important battle in which Scott 
was engaged in that war took place on the 25th at 
Lundy's Lane, the engagement known as the Battle of 
Niagara. 

Scott was the hero of this battle, one of the most 
stirring and hard-fought engagements of the war. He 
led his men in almost every charge, with ardent daring 
and unflinching courage, the men catching his spirit 
and fighting with the utmost bravery. Though he lost 



112 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

a quarter of his brigade, he would not yield an inch of 
ground. Two horses were killed under him and he 
was twice wounded, the second time severely by a 
musket ball through his shoulder. 

The British were not lacking in courage, renewing 
the attack again and again, thinking every time that 
the broken Americans must give way. But the only 
response of the latter was the repeated, " Charge 
again !" and as Scott, bleeding from his wound, was 
carried to the rear, and every regimental officer was 
killed or wounded, he vigorously shouted, " Charge 
again !" 

The persistence of the Americans told. When the 
firing ceased, at eleven o'clock at night, they held the 
field, though the lack of water obliged them to aban- 
don it the next morning. Scott's wound prevented 
him from rejoining the army for several months, but 
the President rewarded him with the rank of major- 
general and Congress gave him a vote of thanks, 
requesting the President to bestow on him a gold 
medal for his " uniform gallantry and good conduct 
in sustaining the reputation of the arms of the United 
States." 

A treaty of peace was soon after made, Scott's 
wound preventing him from taking any further part in 
that war. After the treaty was ratified by the Senate 
he was offered the cabinet position of Secretary of 
War, but he declined on the plea of being too young. 
When asked to take it temporarily, he again declined, 
saying that the greater age and longer service of 
General Brown and General Jackson made them more 
deserving of the post. 

Many years passed before Scott had any more im- 
portant military service to perform. He was sent to 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 113 

the field during the Black Hawk War of 1832, but it 
was at an end before he reached there. Yet, though 
unable to show his valor, he displayed still higher traits 
of character. The cholera broke out among his troops 
with fearful ravages. Though the disease was then 
considered contagious Scott went among the sick, com- 
forting them and attending to their wants, and by his 
words of cheer and his humane example inspiring the 
well with hope and courage. He was practically head 
nurse during the progress of the infection. 

On his return he was sent by President Jackson to 
Charleston, where the " nullification " excitement was 
then in full swing, with instructions to take proper 
measures to prevent an insurrection, or to quell it if 
it should break out. Fortunately no military service 
was needed, the President's prompt action ending the 
trouble. In 1841, on the death of General McComb, 
he succeeded as commander-in-chief of the army of 
the United States. 

Another war awaited Scott, that with Mexico, which 
broke out in 1846, General Taylor being the hero of 
its early engagements. In 1847 preparations were 
made to invade Mexico on a larger scale and Scott 
was directed to take command. No better man could 
have been chosen. He had proved himself a gallant 
and daring fighter at Chippewa and Niagara ; he was 
now to show strategy of the highest order and win 
himself a place among the ablest soldiers of the age. 

In March, with an army of twelve thousand men, 
he besieged and captured Vera Cruz, the chief Mexican 
seaport, taking five thousand prisoners. From this 
point he set out on the long march to the City of 
Mexico, and on April 18 attacked and took by storm 
the strong mountain fortress of Cerro Gordo, defended 
8 



114 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

by fifteen thousand Mexicans under Santa Anna 
himself. 

The journey to the Mexican capital went on slowly, 
Scott being obliged to wait for reinforcements and 
supplies. On approaching the city the regular roads, 
bristling with forts, were avoided, the troops mak- 
ing themselves a new way of approach by an unde- 
fended route and nearing the city in August with 
little opposition. Hard fighting began on the 20th of 
August at Churubusco, ten miles from the city, five 
separate victories being won on that day and the large 
Mexican army driven back on the capital. 

The Americans followed until the immediate vicinity 
of the city was reached. Here on September 8 was 
fought the battle of Molino del Rey and on the 13th the 
troops charged up the steep hill of Chapultepec and 
captured the fortress on its summit. Immediately 
afterwards the city was attacked and two of its gates 
were taken before night. In the early morning of the 
14th Scott led his army into the city, from which Santa 
Anna and his troops had fled, and at 7 o'clock the 
American flag was floating above the National Palace. 
There was little more fighting, a treaty of peace being 
signed February 2, 1848. Scott was naturally proud 
of his success, and justly claimed that his campaign 
had been " successful as to every prediction, plan, 
siege, battle, and skirmish." 

The remainder of Scott's life must be briefly passed 
over. In 1852 the Whig party chose him as its 
candidate for President, but he was badly defeated 
by a far more obscure opponent, Franklin Pierce. The 
Whig party was then in a state of decay and Scott 
proved himself greatly lacking as a politician. The 
rank of lieutenant-general, previously borne only by 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 115 

Washington, was conferred on him in 1855, and in 
1861, when the Civil War broke out, he remained true 
to his allegiance to the Union after his native State 
seceded, and held nominal command of the army till 
November, when he retired to private life, being then 
seventy-five years old. He died May 29, 1866, at West 
Point, and was buried there. 

General Scott was a man of imposing presence, six 
feet four inches high. He has been charged with 
undue vanity and pompousness, but he was a sincere 
patriot and a man of admirable character. He was 
open-hearted, forgiving, frank, and manly in war, 
careful of his men, never sending or leading them 
recklessly into danger, and always ready to share their 
hardships. Severe in discipline and exacting strict 
obedience from his men, he made them his warm 
friends by his thoughtfulness and care for their 
comfort and his devotion to them in sickness 
and pain. 



ANDREW JACKSON, THE OLD HICKORY 
OF THE BATTLE-FIELD 

Andrew Jackson was one of those who began life 
at the bottom of the tree and ended it in its topmost 
branches. He was born, the son of a poor Irish settler, 
near the western border of North and South Carolina, 
probably in the latter State, on the 15th of March, 
1767. His father died before Andrew was born, 
leaving his mother miserably poor and with a large 
family on her hands. 

Her son Andrew grew up to be an active, stirring, 
and mischievous lad, used to hardships from infancy, 
always up to some prank or other, and getting a mere 
smattering of education. When he was thirteen years 
old the Revolutionary War, which had gone on for 
years in the North, shifted to the South, and the tide of 
invasion swept over the Carolinas. Young as he was, 
the boy was full of patriotic fire, and hated the British 
with all his heart. He was too young to join the 
patriotic forces, but Hugh, his eldest brother, did so 
and was killed. Mrs. Jackson fled with her children 
to the town of Charlotte for safety, and when some 
time later this town was raided by the British, Andrew 
and his brother Robert were among the captives taken. 

The boys, with their fellow-prisoners, were carried 
to Camden, forty miles away, and there thrown into a 
wretched prison, with miserable food and utter lack of 
care and humanity. Smallpox broke out among them 
and dead and dying lay together on the ground. 

The story is told that a British officer ordered little 

116 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 117 

Andy to clean his muddy boots, to which the boy patriot 
repUed, " I am a prisoner of war, not your servant." 
The officer, enraged at the boy's insolence, as he 
deemed it, drew his sword and aimed a blow at the 
lad's head. It did not kill him, but he carried the 
marks of the wound as long as he lived. The im- 
prisonment of him and his brother ended when Mrs. 
Jackson made her way to Camden and by her appeals 
managed to get her boys set free. But she contracted 
the prison disease and was not long home before both 
she and Robert died. 

Thus at fourteen years of age Andrew Jackson was 
left without parents or brothers, with little education 
and with no moral discipline or restraint. He became 
a wild, reckless youth, a drinker, gambler, and haunter 
of horse-races and cock-fights, and was looked upon as 
the worst character in the country round. He began 
to study the saddler's trade, but soon left it. Later 
he taught school for a time, though he could not have 
known much more than his pupils. Finally, thinking 
that it was high time for him to be learning some busi- 
ness, he decided to study the law and went to a little 
town in North Carolina, where he spent two years in 
a lawyer's office. 

By this time the native good sense of the boy was 
making itself felt and he saw that if he wished to 
succeed in life he must make himself respected rather 
than detested and feared. At twenty he was a tall 
young man, over six feet high, was a splendid horse- 
man, an expert sportsman, fond of rough adventures, 
of fiery temper and fearless spirit, profane in speech 
and with many bad habits, but graceful in bearing and 
dignified in manner. At twenty-two he had gained 



Ii8 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

some knowledge of the law and was ready to begin life 
for himself. 

In deciding where to open his office the young man's 
love of wild life and adventure induced him to leave 
the Carolinas and cross the mountains into Tennessee, 
then being settled. The journey was made on foot 
with a party of pioneers, who travelled nearly five 
hundred miles over the mountains and through the 
dense forests until they reached the little settlement 
on the Cumberland River which has grown into the 
city of Nashville. 

The journey was one full of peril. The acts of law- 
less whites had made the Indians bitterly hostile, and 
safety was only to be found in wide-awake vigilance. 
On one occasion the party was saved by the alertness 
of the young lawyer. When the others had gone to 
sleep in the night camp, Andrew sat up by the fire 
smoking his pipe, and as he did so the hooting of owls 
around the camp attracted his attention. One espe- 
cially loud hoot struck him as suspicious. He listened 
a while longer, then quietly roused some of the men, 
saying, " Indians are all around us. I have heard 
their signals on every side. They mean to attack 
us before daybreak." 

The remainder of the party were quietly awakened 
and they moved away to a safer locality. Soon after 
they had gone a party of hunters came to their deserted 
camp and went to sleep there. Shortly before daybreak 
they were attacked by the Indians and only one of 
them escaped. Jackson's keenness and caution had 
saved the lives of his party. 

Opening his office in Nashville, Jackson was soon 
appointed public prosecutor of the district. The office 
was one of small pay, little honor, and great peril, and 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 119 

one which few were ready to accept. It was not a 
popular thing in that frontier region to be engaged in 
punishing the breakers of the law. People carried 
weapons everywhere and did not hesitate to use them 
even in the courts. In going from place to place to 
attend court, or in debt-collecting excursions, he was 
in danger alike from desperadoes and Indians. He 
had many escapes from deadly peril, but his fearless 
disposition and his native caution carried him through 
and he won the reputation of being one of the ablest 
and most daring of the men in that wilderness region. 

When Jackson reached Nashville the new Constitu- 
tion of the United States had recently been adopted 
and it was expected that Washington would be elected 
President. The new Territory of Tennessee grew and 
Jackson with it, he making much money by purchasing 
large tracts of land and selling them off to the settlers. 
In 1796 Tennessee was made a State and the people 
showed their appreciation of him by electing him as 
their first representative to Congress. He rode to 
Philadelphia on horseback, and on entering the halls of 
Congress was stared at as a genuine oddity. He is 
thus described : " A tall, lank, uncouth personage, 
with lots of hair around his face, and a queue down 
his back tied with an eelskin, his dress singular, his 
manner and deportment those of a rough backwoods- 
man." He was a new sort of customer to appear 
among the polished members of Congress. 

But he seemed to have won great favor in his own 
State, for he was soon after elected to the United 
States Senate, and carried his eelskin queue into its 
dignified halls. He probably found this body much 
too dignified for a man of his frontier habits, for he did 
not stay long in the Senate, leaving it to become a 



120 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

justice of the supreme court of Tennessee. It was a 
long step upward from the lawless habits of his boy- 
hood to be thus judged worthy the highest honors of 
his State. 

We may pass over the story of Jackson's marriage 
to Mrs. Robards, a divorced woman, who made him 
one of the best of wives ; and of his giving up the 
judgeship and becoming a storekeeper. His hot tem- 
per grew no cooler as time passed on, but went with 
him through his various occupations and led him into 
many brawls and not a few duels, which were very 
common in the West in those days. 

One of the worst of his affrays came from a duel 
between William Carroll and Jesse Benton, in which 
Jackson was Carroll's second. Benton was severely 
wounded, and his brother. Colonel Thomas H. Benton, 
afterwards a famous senator, was furious at Jackson, 
on whom he had conferred favors. Jackson met the 
Bentons in a tavern soon after and a fight took place 
in which Jackson was terribly wounded, his arm and 
shoulder being horribly shattered by two balls and a 
slug from Jesse Benton's pistol. 

It was an unfortunate affair for Jackson, for the 
war with Great Britain was now going on and his 
services were soon demanded. He had raised twenty- 
five hundred troops for the needs of the Government 
early in the war, but their aid was not called for 
until late in 1813, when the Creek Indians broke out 
in insurrection, attacked the settlers and murdered all 
the people in Fort Mimms, Alabama. Action, quick 
and vigorous, was needed, but Jackson, the leading 
military man of the State, was then stretched a wan 
and haggard invalid upon his bed, slowly recovering 
from his terrible wounds. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 121 

The news lifted him at once from his bed. With his 
arm in a sling, the wounded bones just beginning to 
heal, and needing to be fairly lifted to his horse, he 
took hold of the situation with extraordinary energy, 
and soon had a force in the field, with orders to rendez- 
vous at Fayetteville, on the Alabama border. Here he 
joined them, weak from his wounds, scarce able to sit 
on his horse, but resolute as a Titan. After much 
marching and fighting, on the 27th of March, 18 14, he 
attacked the Indians in their well-fortified stronghold 
on the Tallapoosa River, where a desperate battle 
took place, the savages being defeated so utterly that 
hardly a man of them escaped. The blow was a 
terrible one and forced the warriors to beg for peace. 
Jackson's prompt energy and quick success showed the 
people that in him they had a soldier of marked ability, 
and in May he was made a major-general in the army 
of the United States. 

Throughout the whole campaign he had suffered 
terribly from his wounds, often undergoing agony, and 
leading his men like a pale and haggard spectre, only 
kept in the saddle by his indomitable energy. By the 
later months of the year he had fairly well recovered, 
and his services were demanded in the most momen- 
tous event of his life. The British had determined to 
try and take New Orleans and Jackson was ordered 
to collect an army and defend that city. 

The British expedition was a formidable one. It 
consisted of sixty ships, carrying a thousand cannon, 
manned by nearly nine thousand sailors and marines 
while it transported ten thousand veteran soldiers 
from the Napoleonic wars. Jackson's army consisted 
of little more than four thousand men, raw as troops, 
but many of them skilled marksmen of the frontier. 



122 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

New Orleans at that time contained about twenty 
thousand people, and many of these were made use 
of in the defence. Jackson himself was still feeble, but 
his old resolute will kept him in the field. 

The British landed on the loth of December, 1814, 
and marched from Lake Borgne toward the city, com- 
ing on slowly and cautiously, and not reaching the city 
front until the 23d. The delay gave Jackson time to 
throw up a line of intrenchments, in which he freely 
used the cotton bales from the city warehouses. The 
British used sugar hogsheads from the plantation 
storehouses for the same purpose. 

Several fierce encounters took place and it was soon 
found that cotton bales and sugar hogsheads could not 
stand against cannon. They were replaced with earth. 
Pakenham, the British commander, made his first 
vigorous attack on the 28th, eight thousand veterans 
marching against the less than three thousand militia 
then behind Jackson's works. The British advanced 
with rolling drums and resolute men, but they were 
facing riflemen who knew how to make every shot tell, 
and the redcoats were hurled back like the shattered 
ranks at Bunker Hill. 

Other assaults were made, the final one on January 
8. It was a terrible scene. The British fought like 
heroes, but it was impossible to face the storm of 
bullets and cannon balls that rent their ranks. In a 
brief time it was all over, the British had lost their 
commander and twenty-six hundred men in killed, 
wounded and prisoners. Jackson's whole loss was the 
surprisingly small one of eight killed and thirteen 
wounded. Not long afterwards the news reached 
America that a treaty of peace had been signed at 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 123 

Ghent before the battle took place, though a month 
and more passed before news of it was received. 

This great victory made " Old Hickory " famous. 
Never had there been a more brilliant and decisive 
one, and till the day of his death General Andrew 
Jackson was one of the most popular men in the 
United States. He was still kept in command, and 
when the Seminole Indians of Florida made attacks 
on the frontier, he invaded that country, quelled the 
Indians, attacked a Spanish post, and hung two Eng- 
lishmen whom he suspected of stirring up the savages. 
Jackson was sharply criticised for his arbitrary acts, 
and the affair nearly led to a war with Spain. But 
Congress and the President sustained the general, and 
soon afterwards the difficulty was settled by Spain 
ceding Florida to the United States. 

From this time on, as may well be imagined, there 
was no place in the country too good for Andrew 
Jackson, the most admired hero of the war with Eng- 
land. He was made governor of Florida. Then 
Tennessee a second time elected him United States 
senator. In 1824 he was a candidate for President 
and received the largest electoral vote, though, not 
having a majority over all, he was not elected. In 1828 
the people made sure that their favorite should be 
placed in the Presidential chair. 

Jackson was made by nature for a general, not for 
a President. His obstinacy was unconquerable, and 
though he doubtless meant well he did things which 
were not to the advantage of the country. His temper 
often overruled his judgment. But when his native 
State of South Carolina took steps towards seceding 
from the Union, Jackson stood firmly by the Govern- 
ment and put a quick stop to the secession movement. 



124 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

On the other hand, he ruined the Bank of the United 
States and brought a business panic upon the country. 
And he introduced a system of selecting office-holders 
on the basis of party activity, not of merit, which it took 
many years to get rid of. 

But with all his faults as a statesman the people 
admired and loved Jackson. They elected him a 
second time in 1832, and in 1836 they put in the Presi- 
dential chair Martin Van Buren, the man of his 
choice. 

In 1837 he retired to the Hermitage, his home near 
Nashville, still one of the most popular men in the 
country. But he had suffered a terrible loss eight years 
before in the death of his beloved wife, a shock from 
which he never recovered. Her death made him a 
changed man, subdued in spirit and seldom using his 
old profanity, except when roused to anger. He suf- 
fered from sickness severely in his later years, but bore 
his pains with manly fortitude, never complaining. 
He died June 8, 1845, ^^^ was buried by the side of his 
deeply-loved wife. 



WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, THE HERO 
OF TIPPECANOE 

Virginia has well been called " The Mother of 
Presidents," for seven of the occupants of the White 
House, more than one-fourth of the total number, were 
born in that State. Among these was William Henry 
Harrison, who, though he was elected from Ohio, was 
born on the banks of the James River, Virginia, on 
the 9th of February, 1773. The Harrison family is 
one that has played a leading part in American public 
life, having given two Presidents to the Republic, 
while one member of the family was in that noble band 
of patriots who signed the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. 

This was Benjamin Harrison, father of the man 
with whom we are now concerned. A burly, good- 
natured fellow was Benjamin Harrison, and when 
his friend John Hancock, a very small and very modest 
man, was elected president of the Congress, Harrison 
picked him up bodily and carried him to the chairman's 
seat, saying as he set him down, " Gentlemen, we will 
show Mother Britain how much we care for her, by 
making our president a Massachusetts man whom she 
has refused to pardon by a public proclamation." 

William Henry, the son of this jovial giant, re- 
ceived a good education, and after his father's death 
went to Philadelphia to study medicine. His studies 
there soon came to an end. Born with a love of 
adventure, and learning that an army was being raised 
by General St. Clair to fight the Indians of the North- 

125 



126 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

west Territory, who were murdering the settlers, 
young Harrison left the medical college for the army, 
in which he was given the rank of ensign. His friends 
tried to dissuade him from this act, he being then 
slender and frail and apparently unfit for hardship, but 
his love of an active life prevailed and he marched 
away to the Indian war. 

History tells us the fate of the St. Clair expedition, 
how it was ambushed by the Indians and almost totally 
destroyed. Ensign Harrison was one of the few who 
escaped from that field of blood. He was afterwards 
put in command of a pack-train, carrying supplies to 
the frontier posts, and did this in the face of constant 
danger from prowling bodies of savages. His courage 
and ability in this perilous work won him promotion 
to the rank of lieutenant. 

When General Wayne succeeded St. Clair and 
marched against the savages, Lieutenant Harrison, 
then only twenty-one years of age, had his second 
experience in battle, taking a very active part in that 
bloody contest in which " Mad Anthony " utterly 
vanquished the savage foe. There was no braver man 
on the field than the young lieutenant, of whose 
courage Wayne spoke in the highest terms, and re- 
warded him for his fine conduct by making him a 
captain and putting him in command of one of the 
frontier posts. 

The boy, for he was yet little more, was making 
his way. After the Indians had been quieted, a reg- 
ular territorial organization was formed for the North- 
west, a governor and secretary being appointed. 
Harrison, then twenty-four years of age, left the 
army to accept the post of secretary of the Territory. 
Three years later the great Territory was divided into 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 127 

two, one of them being named Indiana. Of this 
Harrison was made governor, and given unusual 
powers, as he had to deal with an unusual situation, 
the management of the Indians being a difficult prob- 
lem. During the twelve years in which he held this 
position he made thirteen treaties with the Indians and 
acquired for the Government many millions of acres 
of land. 

The great Louisiana Purchase of 1803 added very 
largely to his duties, for the immense district thus 
acquired was for the time being added to Indiana Ter- 
ritory, and Harrison became governor of a district 
larger than all the remainder of the United States, 
though it was mainly a wilderness, inhabited chiefly 
by wandering tribes of Indians. 

The quelling of the savages by General Wayne was 
only temporary. About 1809 they became unquiet 
again, stirred up to hostile acts by two men of remark- 
able powers, the daring warrior named Tecumseh and 
his brother, the eloquent orator known as " the 
Prophet." These two men, indignant at the treatment 
of the natives by the whites and inspired by a wild 
dream of driving the pale-faces from the land, went 
among the tribes, doing their utmost to stir them up to 
revolt. 

Governor Harrison, hearing of what these men were 
doing, invited them to a council, to be held on the 
I2th of August, 1809. The proud Tecumseh came, 
with four hundred armed Indian warriors at his back. 
Harrison met them with a score or more of soldiers 
and citizens. As the council went on the Indians 
grew haughty and hostile in demeanor and vowed 
that they would give no more land to the whites and 
would drive the intruders from their territory. 



128 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Tecumseh grew so angry at the resolute demeanor of 
the whites that he sprang furiously to his feet and the 
warriors brandished their arms threateningly. Harri- 
son was not troubled by their hostile display. He rose 
and drew his sword and his guard got ready to fire, 
but he ordered them not to do so and told Tecumseh 
that he could go away unharmed. This bold and 
spirited behavior cowed the savages and four hundred 
of them marched away in the face of a score with a 
man of resolution at their head. 

For two years there was no more trouble. Tecum- 
seh and his brother continued their insidious work, 
but the tribes feared to rise. Meanwhile settlers were 
pouring rapidly into the Territory and it began to 
look as if the hunting-grounds of the Indians would 
soon be lost to them. There is reason to believe that 
about this time British agents, foreseeing the coming 
war, stirred up the tribesmen, for their old ravages 
against the settlers began again. Tecumseh, inspired 
perhaps by hopes of British aid, grew more active than 
ever in seeking to form an alliance of the tribes, 
and in 1811 sought the Southern States to bring the 
Indians of that region into his organization. 

During his absence Governor Harrison, determined 
to put an end to the attacks on the settlers, gathered 
a force of nine hundred men and marched against the 
hostile tribes, encamping at a place called Tippecanoe, 
where a body of several thousand Indians had 
gathered. Tecumseh, a skilled and able leader, had 
forbidden his followers to take any action before he 
gave them the word, but his excitable brother, the 
Prophet, now stirred up his followers to war, telling 
them that by his charms he could protect them against 
bullets and bayonets. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 129 

The chiefs had visited Harrison's tent, pretending to 
be peaceable, but on the night of November 7 they crept 
covertly on his camp, expecting to find the soldiers 
asleep and defenceless. Fortunately Harrison had not 
trusted them. The soldiers lay with their guns beside 
them and at the first savage yell were up and in line. 
The fire of the Indians was met by a withering 
volley, against which the charms of the Prophet proved 
useless, and after a severe struggle, in which they lost 
heavily, they broke and fled to the swamps, leaving 
Harrison the victor of Tippecanoe. Thirty years later, 
when he was a candidate for the Presidency, this 
battle became famous, and " Old Tippecanoe " was the 
war-cry of his followers. 

When the war with Great Britain broke out in the 
following year Harrison was commissioned a brigadier- 
general, and was raised in rank to major-general 
in 1813. Of the three divisions of the army operating 
against Canada, Harrison was put in command of that 
acting against Detroit, which General Hull had sur- 
rendered to the British early in the war. The troops 
under him were volunteers, effective in scattered fights 
and operations against the Indians, but unfit to stand 
in battle against disciplined soldiers. His attempts to 
expel the British from Detroit were therefore inef- 
fectual. When the winter of 1812-13 came on and the 
swamps and lakes of the Northwest were sufficiently 
frozen to bear the weight of marching soldiers, a 
second demonstration was made against Detroit. But 
in this Harrison's advance, under General Winchester, 
was attacked by the British under Proctor, and Win- 
chester surrendered as promptly as Hull had done 
before him. 

The disaster forced Harrison to retreat to Fort 
9 



I30 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Meigs, where he successfully sustained two sieges by 
General Proctor, who was repulsed on both occasions. 
Harrison's opportunity came in October, 1813, after 
the victory of Perry on Lake Erie. Perry took Harri- 
son's troops on board his vessels and carried them to 
Canada, where they advanced against their old antag- 
onist. General Proctor. The latter retreated to the 
line of the Thames River, where he selected a good 
battle-ground and awaited the Americans. In addition 
to his regulars, he had with him fifteen hundred 
Indians, under their famous chief Tecumseh, who had 
been made a brigadier-general in the British army. 

The Americans attacked on the 5th of October, and 
one of the most important battles of the war began. 
Proctor, who seems to have been a thing of show and 
bluster rather than a man of valor, fled early in the 
fight, leaving his soldiers to hold their ground as they 
could. The regulars fought bravely, and so did the In- 
dians, under their skilled and daring leader. But in the 
thick of the battle a bullet laid low brave Tecumseh 
and his disheartened followers broke and fled. The 
regulars, their support lost, were obliged to surrender, 
leaving the Americans full masters of the field. This 
victory was quickly followed by the capture of Detroit, 
with which event the war ended in the West. 

Some anecdotes are told of General Harrison's lack 
of ostentation and his popularity with his soldiers, one 
or two of which will bear repeating. Once when he, 
with a small force, was making his way through the 
forest, night and rain came on together. They had 
no axes, the ground was water-soaked, and they could 
build no fires. Food also was lacking, and they passed 
the night in hunger, Harrison with no more comforts 
than his men, leaning against the trees or sitting on 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 131 

fallen logs. In the middle of the night, to cheer them 
up, he asked one of the men to sing a comic Irish 
song, and the laughter that followed acted like a 
tonic upon their weary frames. 

Another story reminds us of Marion's sweet-potato 
feast with the British officer. Harrison had captured 
four British officers and asked them to take supper 
with him. To the surprise, and somewhat to the dis- 
gust, of the Britons, the best he had to offer them was 
beef, roasted in the fire, and eaten without bread or 
salt. 

The war ended, Harrison was elected in 1816 to 
represent Cincinnati in Congress, and there proved 
that he was as good a speaker as he was a soldier. He 
was voted a gold medal for his services in the war. 
In 1824 he was elected a member of the Senate, and 
in 1828 was sent as minister to the republic of 
Colombia, but was recalled by President Jackson in 
the following spring. After that he passed years in 
private life on his farm at North Bend, on the Ohio 
River. Though a great man in the eyes of his country- 
men, he was content to take up the simple duties of 
farm life, and when one of his relatives left him a 
whiskey distillery, he refused to accept it, though at a 
great loss to himself. His temperance principles 
would not permit him to make and sell liquid poison. 

In 1836 the Whigs of the country took up this North 
Bend farmer as their candidate for President, and gave 
him seventy-three electoral votes, though he was 
defeated by Van Buren. He ran again in 1840, this 
campaign being the most original and spectacular in 
the history of the Presidency. Van Buren was again 
his opponent, and early in the campaign the Baltimore 
Republican made the slurring remark that if some one 



132 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

would pension General Harrison with a few hundred 
dollars and give him a barrel of hard cider he would 
sit down in his log cabin and be content for the rest 
of his life. 

The foolish slur proved the keynote of the campaign. 
Log cabins and hard cider were the ammunition of the 
Whigs. In every city and every village and at tlie 
country cross-roads log cabins were built and enough 
hard cider was drunk to float a battleship. Scores 
of campaign songs were written and sung, " Old 
Tippecanoe " being the burden. A disgusted Dem- 
ocrat said that from the opening of the canvass 
the whole Whig party went on a colossal spree on hard 
cider, which continued until Harrison was installed as 
President in the White House ; he being triumphantly 
elected, with an electoral vote of two hundred and 
thirty-four against sixty for Van Buren. 

Harrison was now sixty-eight years old, and was far 
from strong. He wore no hat or overcoat while 
delivering his inaugural address, and felt the effect of 
his imprudence, despite his long seasoning in hard- 
ships. To the weakening effect of the severe cold 
which he caught was added the persistent annoyance 
of office-seekers, who buzzed around him like pestilent 
bees and almost drove him frantic. The result of all 
this was an attack of pneumonia, and he died on the 
4th of April, 1841, just one month after his inaugura- 
tion. He was the first President to die in office, and an 
immense concourse attended his funeral, his remains 
being interred near his home at North Bend, Ohio. 



SAMUEL HOUSTON, THE WINNER OF 
TEXAS INDEPENDENCE 

There are few of us who have not read, with 
bounding pulses, the story of the heroic defence of the 
Alamo, and with bitter indignation of the martyrdom 
of the heroes by the base Santa Anna. This was a 
spirit-stirring episode in the history of the Texan 
struggle for independence, in which the leading figure 
was General Samuel Houston, or Sam Houston, as he 
preferred to be called. The story of this hero, which 
we have next to tell, was one full of the elements of 
romance. Half Indian and half American in his career, 
he ended by making himself famous in American 
history. 

In the early days of the republic of the United States 
the wild region of Kentucky and Tennessee was the 
paradise of the hunter and the pioneer. Thither came 
hundreds of the strong, hardy, adventurous sons of 
the older settlements, and with them came a Virginia 
matron with her nine fatherless children, one of them, 
Samuel Houston, born near Lexington, Virginia, in 

1793- 

A daring, impulsive, roving fellow was young Hous- 
ton. He was only thirteen when his mother settled in 
a new home on the banks of the Tennessee River, then 
the boundary between the frontiersmen and the sav- 
ages. Beyond it lay the country of the Cherokee 
Indians, and among these the adventure-loving boy 
soon learned to rove. During much of his boyhood, 
indeed, he fairly lived with the redmen, learning their 

133 



134 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

language and falling into their ways of life. He 
lived among them in later years also, as we shall state 
farther on, and they grew to look upon him as one 
of their chiefs and leaders. 

In this regard there is an interesting anecdote extant. 
In 1846, when Houston was in Washington as a mem- 
ber of Congress, a party of forty Cherokee braves was 
brought to that city by General Moorhead. These 
sons of the wilds looked about them with suspicion 
and distrust, but when their eyes fell upon Houston 
their expression changed. They ran to him, hugged 
him like bears in their brawny arms, and with high 
delight greeted him as " father." 

Houston, as we have said, was a stirring and daring 
fellow, with a hand in all that was going on. When 
General Jackson called for volunteers in the war with 
the Creeks, he, then in his early manhood, joined the 
ranks, and was desperately wounded in the war that 
followed. He remained in the army until 18 18, rising 
from private to second lieutenant, then left the anny, 
studied law, and soon began to practice, making Nash- 
ville his home. To all appearance he had a quiet life 
before him, but the Fates decided otherwise. 

The bright young lawyer rose rapidly in his pro- 
fession, soon had a large practice, was elected district 
attorney, and in 1823 was chosen to represent his dis- 
trict in Congress. Four years he spent in Washington, 
as a national legislator, and made himself so popular 
in the State that in 1827, when thirty-four years of age, 
he was elected governor of Tennessee. His progress 
had been remarkably rapid ; he had become one of 
the leading men in the State ; he might aspire to any 
position ; but now came an event that changed the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 135 

whole current of his life and sent him adrift as a 
wanderer among his old friends, the Indians. 

The trouble came from marriage. He was by no 
means the first man who came into difficulty through 
getting a wife, but his was of a peculiar kind and led 
to a strange result. He married in 1829, his bride 
being Miss Eliza Allen, a young lady of excellent 
family and of the highest character. What was the 
trouble between the governor and his wife no one 
knew, but the union proved short and unhappy. In 
less than three months they separated. Society was 
filled with excitement. For a governor thus quickly 
to set aside his wife was unprecedented and stirred 
up the whole State. Reports of various kinds rose 
and spread. The people of the State divided into two 
parties, one for Governor Houston, the other for his 
wife, and popular feeling was highly strained. The 
lady's friends charged the governor with odious faults ; 
his friends supported him as warmly ; ignorance of the 
real cause of the separation trebled the excitement 
that prevailed. 

Meanwhile Houston kept silent, not offering a denial 
of any calumny, not seeking to vindicate himself in 
any particular or permitting his friends to speak for 
him. Whatever the mystery, he would not permit a 
word to be said in his presence that cast a shadow on 
the lady's character. Silence was preserved on both 
sides, and the public was left to rumor and conjecture. 

In the end, the situation grew so painful that Hous- 
ton could bear it no longer. He determined to forsake 
the haunts of civilization and seek the wilderness. He 
resigned his office as governor and left the city for the 
forest, taking refuge among his old friends, the 
Cherokees. In his boyhood days, while a rover among 



136 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

the Indian villages, their chief Oolooteka had become 
his warm friend and had adopted him as a son. This 
chief and his tribe were now dwelling in Arkansas. The 
old friendship had not died out. Though for more 
than ten years they had not met, tokens of kind feeling 
had passed between them, and when now the heart- 
sick wanderer sought the wigwam of his redskin 
" father " he was greeted with the warmest welcome. 

For the three years that followed the late governor 
lived the life of an Indian, dwelling in the villages of 
the tribe, going with them on their hunts, taking part 
in their councils, making himself one of them. He had 
cut loose from the life of the whites and it seemed 
as if he would never return to it again. 

But during these years he kept in close touch with 
what was going on in the country to the south, that 
broad and fertile land of Texas, which was then an 
unquiet part of the republic of Mexico. Texas was an 
outlying section of the Spanish republic, in which few 
of the Mexicans had settled, and the almost unoccupied 
region proved a strong attraction to the neighboring 
Americans, numbers of whom crossed its borders and 
settled on its plains. By 1830 there were about twenty 
thousand American settlers on the fertile Texan soil. 

These hot-blooded Southerners had no love for the 
Mexicans. They had not cut loose from allegiance to 
the starry flag, had no idea of submitting to the rule 
of the " greasers," as they contemptuously designated 
the Mexicans, and were in a state of chronic revolt. 
They rose in rebellion in 1832, fought with the Mex- 
ican troops, and drove them all out of the country. 

This state of affairs appealed strongly to Houston, 
whose soldierly instincts were aroused. Like many of 
the Southerners, he had learned to detest the Mexicans, 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 137 

and there now seemed an opportunity of winning that 
fine country, nearly all of whose people were Ameri- 
cans, for the United States. In this he was probably in 
accord with his old friend and leader, General Jackson, 
then at Washington as President, who is thought to 
have encouraged him in his desire to win new territory 
for the South and its institutions. At any rate, in 
December, 1832, Houston left the wigwam of Ooloo- 
teka and crossed the Texan border. He was the man 
that was needed. The settlers were fairly ripe for a 
warlike leader. 

Texas was comparatively quiet during the two years 
that followed, but immigrants kept pouring over the 
border and the sentiment for independence grew daily. 
It was brought to a head by an order from the Mexi- 
can government, to the effect that all the people should 
be disarmed. This was like throwing fire into gun- 
powder. A company of Mexican soldiers was sent to 
the little town of Gonzales to remove a small brass 
six-pounder. Near the town a party of Texans met 
and put them to flight, killing several of them. This 
battle was called " the Lexington of Texas." 

On all sides the Texans sprang to arms, and it was 
not long before all the Mexican troops were driven 
out of the country. They were few in number and 
were under weak leaders, while the Texans had arisen 
in their might, Houston chief among the men in arms. 
He knew well that there was a war before them that 
must be prepared for, and he was not mistaken, for 
Santa Anna himself, the President, or rather Dictator, 
of Mexico, a skilled and ruthless soldier, was quickly 
in the field, with an army of several thousand men. 

Houston, who had been made commander-in-chief 
by the Texan patriots, hastened to dispose effectively 



138 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of the small force under his command. The town of 
Bexar, on the San Antonio River, was defended by a 
garrison of about one hundred and seventy-five men, 
under Colonel W. B. Travis. In his company was the 
renowned pioneer, David Crockett, the famous duellist, 
Colonel James Bowie, and other daring frontiersmen. 
At Goliad was a party of over four hundred, under 
Colonel Fannin. Houston was at Gonzales, with less 
than four hundred men under his immediate command. 

Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande early in 1836, 
and marched against the Texan volunteers. Bexar 
came first in his line of march. It was hopeless for the 
few men there to face his thousands, but not a man 
of them was ready to retreat. They took refuge in the 
Alamo, an old mission station near the town, sur- 
rounded by walls three feet thick and eight feet high. 
Within these walls were a stone church and several 
other buildings. 

For two weeks the brave little garrison defended 
their fortress. Bombs and balls fell in showers within 
the walls and many of the defenders were slain, but the 
assailants suffered far more seriously. At length the 
Texans grew too few to defend the extended walls, 
over which on the morning of March 6th the Mexican 
stormers swarmed. Travis, Crockett, and the others 
left alive fought them like lions, but when the fight 
ended all still alive were massacred by Santa Anna's 
command. 

A few days afterwards the cruel Mexicans appeared 
at Goliad and began a siege of that place. Colonel 
Fannin, knowing that he was too weak to defend it, 
and solemnly promised protection by Santa Anna, soon 
surrendered. The tigerish nature of the Mexican 
dictator was quickly revealed. False to his pledge, he 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 139 

had his captives divided into several companies, 
marched a short distance out of town and shot down 
hke dogs by the Mexican troops, not a man escaping. 
Santa Anna was garnering a harvest of wrath against 
himself. 

These savage atrocities discouraged the patriots and 
Houston now found it difficult to gain recruits. The 
country was in a state of panic. Settlers abandoned 
their homes and fled in fright at the approach of 
the Mexicans. Houston's few hundred men were 
all that remained in arms and terror invaded even 
these, so that desertions were frequent. To gain time 
to fill his ranks he was forced to retreat, slowly falling 
back, watching the foe, and finally taking position on 
Buffalo Bayou, a deep and narrow stream flowing into 
the San Jacinto, about twenty miles southeast of the 
present city of Houston. Here he formed his lines 
and awaited the Mexicans, determined to make a 
desperate stand for his cause. 

The Texans numbered less than seven hundred and 
fifty men. The Mexicans, who soon approached, were 
nearly eighteen hundred strong. But the patriots had 
heard of the bloody work at Goliad and the Alamo and 
were burning with indignation. " There's the enemy," 
said Houston : " do you wish to fight ?" 

" We do !" they roared in reply. 

" Then bear in mind that it is for liberty or death ; 
remember the Alamo!" 

At this moment a lieutenant galloped up, shouting, 
" I've cut down Vince's bridge." 

Both armies had used this bridge in approaching. 
Houston had ordered its destruction, thus cutting off 
the main channel of escape for the vanquished. Like 
Cortez he had " burnt his ships behind him." Forward 



I40 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

the patriots marched until within sixty paces of the 
Mexican lines. Then a shower of balls greeted them, 
but with little harm, for the Mexicans had fired high. 
But one bullet struck General Houston's ankle, inflict- 
ing a very painful wound. Yet though bleeding and 
suffering he kept resolutely in his saddle till the end 
of the day. 

The Texans reserved their fire and dashed on 
furiously, not firing a shot till they could deliver their 
volleys in the very faces of the foe. There was no 
time to reload, for they were on the war-path of 
vengeance, and they rushed forward, clubbing their 
rifles, for they had no bayonets. This fierce assault 
took the Mexicans by surprise and threw them into an 
instant panic. Falling on every side, they broke and 
fled, hotly pursued by the infuriated Texans. It was 
now half past four of April 21. The pursuit ended 
only with the shades of night, and not until the victory 
was complete. Of Houston's men only seven had been 
killed and twenty-three wounded. The Mexicans had 
six hundred and thirty-two killed and wounded, and 
more than seven hundred of the remainder, including 
Santa Anna himself, were made prisoners. 

The victory of San Jacinto set Texas free. Houston 
was its hero and was hailed as the father of the young 
republic, which was organized into an independent 
nation, he being elected its first President. He was 
re-elected for a second term in 1841. He had married 
again in 1840, and lived very happily with his second 
wife, to whom he was deeply attached, often saying 
that to her he owed his chief honor and happiness. 
The secret cause of his separation from his first wife 
he never revealed. 

Texas was annexed to the United States in 1845, ^^ 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 141 

event which led to the war with Mexico. In this Hous- 
ton took no part, but sought to avert it in the United 
States Senate, to which he had been elected. He was 
returned for a second term in 1853, and in 1859 was 
chosen governor of Texas. In the following year the 
secession excitement came on, a movement which he 
warmly deprecated, using argument and illustration in 
opposition. Thus while he was speaking on this sub- 
ject at Galveston, he was interrupted by a restive horse, 
that tried to kick itself loose from its harness. " That 
fellow is trying a little practical secession," remarked 
the speaker, much to the amusement of his audience. 
Finally the horse quieted down and the teamster began 
beating it. " You see how secession works," said 
Houston dryly. After the beating, the teamster began 
to fasten the harness. " See the fix in which he is 
brought back into the Union," concluded the orator. 
By this time the audience was in a roar of laughter. 

But all his efforts were in vain ; the secession senti- 
ment was too strong to combat. A Confederate State 
government was formed, to which he was bidden to 
take an oath of allegiance. This he declined to do and 
was deposed from office. 

" It is perhaps meet that my career should close 
thus," said the old soldier. " I have seen the states- 
men and patriots of my youth gathered to their fathers, 
and the government which they had reared rent in 
twain, and none like them are now left to reunite them 
again. I stand almost the last of a race who learned 
from them the lessons of human freedom." 

In less than two years afterwards, on the 26th of 
July, 1863, he passed away. 



ZACHARY TAYLOR, THE ROUGH AND 
READY OF BUENA VISTA 

There were two leaders who won fame in the war 
with Mexico, General Scott, the tall, handsome, digni- 
fied soldier, and General Taylor, the short, dumpy, 
plain-faced fighter, blunt as a handspike and brave as 
a lion. " Old Rough and Ready " his men called him, 
and the name fitted him well, for he put on no more 
airs than the plainest man in the ranks. A faithful, 
kindly, true-hearted old fellow, who knew his work 
and did his duty, he was a success as a soldier, but it 
was a sad mistake to make a President of the rough old 
warrior. 

Zachary Taylor was born in Orange County, Vir- 
ginia, on the 24th of September, 1784, but he lived 
there only a year, for his father and mother, with 
their three children, set out in 1785 to make a new 
home in Kentucky, a wild country, in which Daniel 
Boone was still hunting game and fighting Indians. 
The father, Colonel Richard Taylor, had been an able 
soldier in the Revolution, and had won admiration for 
courage and patriotism. He settled down on a farm 
near the present city of Louisville, built a rude cabin, 
and began to till the ground for a living. 

There was not much chance there for education, and 
Zachary, as he grew up, got very little. He was a 
daring fellow, who feared neither wild beasts nor 
Indians, and when old enough he was eager to fight the 
latter, who were then making frequent attacks on the 
frontier settlers. Colonel Taylor had become a man 

142 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 143 

of influence in Kentucky, and seeing that his son 
wanted to be a soldier, he succeeded in getting him a 
commission as Heutenant in the United States army. 
His first service was in New Orleans, where in 1808 
he was sent to join the army under General Wilkin- 
son. General Scott, then Captain Scott, served there 
at the same time. 

In 181 2, when the war with Great Britain broke out, 
Taylor was promoted to the rank of captain, and sent 
to command an outpost station called Fort Harrison, 
on the Wabash River. General Harrison had built 
this fort before the battle of Tippecanoe ; it consisted 
of a row of log huts surrounded by high pickets and 
with a block-house at each end. The garrison was no 
more than fifty men. 

Fort Harrison was in the heart of the Indian country 
and Captain Taylor needed to be very vigilant, espe- 
cially as about two-thirds of his men were on the 
sick list. One night a large body of Indians crept 
stealthily up and tried to surprise the fort, but Taylor 
was on the alert and was not taken unawares. The 
first attack repulsed, the savages set fire to a hut con- 
taining a large store of whiskey, the mounting flames 
lighting up the scene like the light of day. The sav- 
ages, excited by the flames, again attacked the fort 
viciously, but the garrison, invalids and all, fought 
with splendid courage the whole night through. At 
six the next morning the enraged assailants withdrew 
in savage disappointment. 

Captain Taylor did other work on the frontier dur- 
ing the war, and was promoted major, but after the 
war, indignant at being reduced to the rank of captain 
again, he left the army. He was not long out, the 
army was his true home, and in the years that followed 



144 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

he was again employed against the Indians. In 1832 
he took part in the Black Hawk War in Illinois, and 
in 1837, now with the rank of colonel, was ordered to 
Florida, where the Seminole Indians were giving the 
Government no little trouble. 

The cause of this war was the attempt to make the 
Seminoles give up their old home in Florida and move 
to a new region in the West. This they resisted bit- 
terly, and under their celebrated chief Osceola gave 
the white soldiers no little trouble. The daring chief 
defeated several detachments that were sent against 
him, but he met his match in Colonel Taylor. The 
Indians had been badly treated by the whites and the 
honest soldier did not relish the work given him. But 
he had his orders and it was his duty to obey. A 
soldier may think what he pleases but he must do what 
he is told. 

The Seminoles were hard to get at. The swamps 
of Florida were their place of refuge, to which they 
could retire when attacked and from which they could 
break out suddenly on marching parties of soldiers. 
Taylor saw at once that the only way to deal with them 
was to invade the swamps and follow them to their 
strongholds. The country was devoid of roads and 
paths and in a state of utter wildness, and the little 
army of one thousand men had to make its own road 
as it advanced, cutting down trees, clearing the under- 
brush, wading across shallow streams, bridging wider 
ones, and sleeping on the wet ground. They had to 
carry their own provisions and were often confronted 
with the greatest difficulties. 

Their chief trouble was to find the Indians. This 
wilderness was the native home of the Seminoles and 
they could traverse it like so many deer. For nearly 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 145 

one hundred and fifty miles Taylor's men hewed their 
way through the thicket and forest, and at length 
found the Indians in force in a fort which they had 
built on an island in the swampy region around Lake 
Okeechobee. The soldiers sought to take the fort by 
storm, but the Seminoles held their works with the 
courage of desperation and drove back the assailants. 
The stronghold was finally taken by an attack on 
another side, many of the Indians being killed and the 
remainder surrendering. This battle took place on 
Christmas Day, 1837. The Indians captured were sent 
west, but those still in the swamp kept up the war 
for years later. 

This victory won Taylor the rank of brigadier- 
general. He spent two years more in Florida, and 
then was put in charge of the department of the South- 
west, which included the States of Georgia, Missis- 
sippi, and Louisiana. He had married long before and 
now bought a plantation near Baton Rouge, Louisi- 
ana, and moved his family there from the North. For 
the first time in years he had a settled home, and 
lived in peace and home comfort in that southern 
country for nearly five years. 

It was the trouble between the United States and 
Mexico over our new State of Texas that called 
General Taylor again into duty as a soldier. There 
was a wide belt of unsettled country between the Rio 
Grande and Nueces Rivers which both countries 
claimed. Taylor received orders to protect Texas 
from invasion, and sailed for Corpus Christi, in Texas, 
where he gathered a force of four thousand regular 
soldiers. It was the purpose of President Polk to 
have Taylor occupy the disputed territory. But the 
old soldier knew this would bring on a war and did 
10 



146 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

not care to make himself responsible for such a result. 
So he held back until direct orders came from Wash- 
ington in March, 1846, when he at once marched to the 
Rio Grande, and built Fort Brown opposite the Mex- 
ican town of Matamoros. 

The expected consequences followed. The Mexi- 
cans ordered Taylor to retire, and when he refused 
they crossed the Rio Grande to drive him out. They 
soon found that they had the wrong man to deal 
with. Two small fights followed on the 8th and 9th 
of May, in both of which the Mexicans were defeated, 
and when they retreated across the river Taylor fol- 
lowed and seized the town of Matamoros. Congress 
had voted him its thanks and made him a major- 
general for the two victories he had won. 

President Polk, who wanted war, had hastened to 
declare that American soil had been invaded and to call 
for volunteers. But it was September before any of 
these reached Taylor and made him strong enough to 
march into the country of the enemy. As soon as the 
men reached him he advanced to Monterey, a strongly 
fortified and garrisoned Mexican town. The struggle 
here was a severe one. After forcing the walls, the 
Americans found the streets so strongly defended 
that they had to enter the houses and break a passage 
through from house to house until the centre square 
was reached. This done, the Mexicans retreated, 
leaving the town in Taylor's hands. 

Another long and vain wait for troops followed, 
lasting seven weeks, when Taylor, weary of waiting, 
again advanced and on December 2 occupied the 
city of "Victoria. He was now in a dangerous situation, 
having marched far from the frontier and having a 
long line of communication to defend with a meagre 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 147 

force. He waited still for reinforcements that did 
not come. The administration at Washington was 
jealous of him for political reasons and held back 
troops until in the end he was obliged to fall back 
upon Monterey. During this reverse movement his 
regulars were taken from him to join the new expe- 
dition under General Scott, leaving him only five 
thousand volunteers. 

The politicians at Washington had put Taylor in a 
position of the greatest danger. Santa Anna, Mexico's 
ablest general, had learned of Taylor's weakened con- 
dition and advanced against him with a force of more 
than twenty thousand regular troops. Marching with 
the utmost haste, he overtook the small American 
force near the mountain pass of Buena Vista, where 
Taylor, brought to bay, selected a strong position and 
stationed his men and guns to the greatest advantage. 

Clouds of dust soon revealed the coming of the 
Mexicans, and Santa Anna, confident in his numbers, 
sent a stafT-oflficer with a flag of truce demanding a 
surrender. 

" General Taylor never surrenders," was the blunt 
answer the veteran sent back. 

Then, mounted on his favorite white horse and in 
the rusty uniform he usually wore, he rode along the 
ranks and said to his men : " Soldiers, I intend to 
remain here, not only as long as a man remains, but as 
long as a piece of a man is left." 

The battle that followed was a long and fierce one, 
the mountain defiles reverberating with the roar of 
artillery and volleys of musketry, and with the thunder 
of hoofs as the clouds of Mexican cavalry rushed upon 
the thin American lines. But the volunteers held their 
ground bravely. 



148 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

" Give them a little more grape, Captain Bragg," 
was Taylor's famous order to a captain of artillery 
at a critical moment in the battle, and the torrent of 
grape-shot hurled the Mexicans back in dismay. 

The struggle was fierce and hotly contested, but in 
the end Taylor won. Over seven hundred of the 
Americans had been killed or wounded, but the Mexi- 
can loss was nearly three times as great, and Santa 
Anna was glad to withdraw with his shattered troops. 
He had cornered old " Rough and Ready " but had 
found him prepared to fight like a bulldog for his 
ground. This battle was fought on the 22d of Febru- 
ary, 1847, the anniversary of Washington's birth. 

The news of Taylor's victory at Buena Vista was 
received with the wildest enthusiasm in the United 
States. Taylor was praised as one of the greatest 
soldiers and became the most popular man in the 
country. There was something spectacular in his 
dogged stand against his foe and the hurling back of 
a force four times his numbers. The sobriquet of 
" Rough and Ready " given him by his soldiers en- 
deared him to the masses, and when he returned home 
in the following November he was received like a 
Roman general returning to a Triumph. 

Taylor was a Whig in politics, which had been the 
reason of the opposition to him of the Democratic Polk 
administration. In June, 1848, when the Whig nomi- 
nating convention was held, the leaders took advantage 
of his popularity and nominated him for President. In 
the November election that followed he was trium- 
phantly elected over two opponents. General Harrison, 
an old soldier, had been the first Whig President ; 
General Taylor, another old soldier, was the second 
and last. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 149 

The whole business was an error, and Taylor was 
made a victim of his political supporters. He was a 
good soldier, but not fit to be a President, as he himself 
declared. His education had been very little, his life 
had been spent in the army, and he had not cast a vote 
for nearly forty years. He knew almost nothing of 
history or of international affairs. Statesmanship was 
an unknown field to him, and the burden of his new 
duties was too heavy for him to bear. There were 
friends ready to write his speeches and prepare his 
public documents, yet the persistence of office-seekers, 
the slavery quarrel then going on in Congress, the 
weight of public duties, worried him greatly, and prob- 
ably hastened his death. As President he had the 
welfare of the country at heart, but his term was not 
long, for after he had been in office little over a year, a 
severe cold led to a fatal sickness, and he died July 
5. 1850. 

Thus the kindly and faithful old soldier laid down 
the burden of life in the President's chair as another 
old soldier had done nine years before. They were 
both made the victims of political self-seekers, borne 
down with the weight of duties for which Nature had 
not intended them. 



GEORGE B. McCLELLAN, FIRST COM- 
MANDER OF THE ARMY OF THE 
POTOMAC 

After the disastrous battle of Bull Run, the first 
great engagement in the Civil War, when the fright- 
ened officials at Washington looked anxiously around 
for some man suitable to take command of the beaten 
and disorganized army, they selected the general who 
had been winning brilliant successes in Western Vir- 
ginia, George Brinton McClellan, the only man who 
had yet made his mark in the war. 

They could not have done better under the circum- 
stances, for McClellan thoroughly knew the art of 
making soldiers out of raw material, and nothing at 
that time was more needed. It was in July, 1861, that 
he took hold, and before the year ended he had so fully 
drilled, equipped, and organized the broken troops 
that he had under his command a well-disciplined body 
of soldiers made out of an untrained mob of militia. 
He had also won the love and admiration of his men 
to an extent not attained by any other general in the 
war, for he possessed in a high degree the power of 
inspiring those around him with such feelings, and no 
man who served under McClellan ever lost his esteem 
for " Little Mac," as they loved to call him. On the 
1st of November, when the veteran General Scott 
gave up his post as commander-in-chief of the armies. 
General McClellan was appointed to take his place. 
He had reached the highest military command the 
Government had to give. 
150 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 151 

George B. McClellan was at that time thirty-four 
years of age, having been born in Philadelphia, Decem- 
ber 3, 1826. The son of a distinguished physician, he 
received a civil education in the University of Pennsyl- 
vania and a military one at West Point, where he 
graduated in 1846 and was made a second lieutenant 
of engineers. His services were quickly called for on 
the field of battle, for the war with Mexico was going 
on and General Taylor was leading his men to victory. 

In 1847 he was in Scott's army in its advance from 
Vera Cruz to the City of Mexico and served gallantly 
in the battles fought by it, winning promotion to the 
rank of captain for his services in the battles around 
the Mexican capital. 

Some years later, while the Crimean War was going 
on in Europe, the United States sent a military com- 
mission to the seat of war, to study the organization of 
European armies. McClellan was on the commission, 
and on his return in 1856 made a valuable report on 
what he had seen and learned. The next year he 
resigned from the army for engineering work of a 
different kind, being appointed chief engineer of the 
Illinois Central Railroad. 

Such was the work on which McClellan was engaged 
when the tocsin of war again sounded and armies 
began to gather, not for battle in foreign lands, but to 
fight one another upon our own soil. He was then 
president of a section of the Ohio and Mississippi 
Railroad, but at once joined the Army of the North 
as major-general of Ohio volunteers and was quickly 
at work in Western Virginia, where in July he won 
victories at Rich Mountain and Cheat River, saving 
that region from the Confederacy, to become soon a 
new State of the Union. 



152 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

In the midst of his victories he was called to a 
broader field of duty, that of commanding- the beaten 
and fugitive Army of the Potomac. The labor of drill- 
ing and organizing the new recruits went on slowly, 
until the authorities at Washington grew so impatient 
that in January, 1862, President Lincoln ordered a gen- 
eral advance of all armies, to begin on the 22d of Feb- 
ruary. Secretary of War Stanton was especially eager 
and was constantly urging a forward movement. The 
general's slowness exasperated him. His opinion of 
him was thus expressed on a later occasion : " Give 
McClellan a million men and he will swear the enemy 
has two million, and will sit down in the mud and yell 
for three million." 

McClellan was no longer commander-in-chief, but 
only in command of the Army of the Potomac, when 
on the loth of March he began the movement ordered, 
transporting his army down the Potomac and Chesa- 
peake Bay to the peninsula between the York and 
James Rivers. Here he spent about a month besieg- 
ing Yorktown, which was evacuated as soon as a move- 
ment on it in force was made. There followed a brief 
fight at Williamsburg, and soon afterwards the Chicka- 
hominy, the stream which flows north of Richmond, 
was reached and crossed by part of the army, rains 
swelling it so that the remainder could not cross. 
General Johnston, then in command of the Confed- 
erate forces, took advantage of this separation of the 
Union forces, and made a sharp attack at Fair Oaks 
on the 31st of May. A severe battle ensued, but rein- 
forcements saved the day for the Union army and 
Johnston was repulsed, after receiving a disabling 
wound. General Robert E. Lee was appointed to 
replace him. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 153 

For several weeks afterwards the army lay inactive 
in the swamps of the Chickahominy, losing more men 
by sickness than might have been lost in a battle. 
McClellan continued to demand more men, and espe- 
cially asked for McDowell's forces, which covered 
Washington. As the authorities feared to expose the 
capital, these were not given him. On the 26th of 
June the new Confederate commander forced the 
fighting, making a sharp and sudden attack on the 
troops at Mechanicsburg and driving them back on the 
remainder of the army. Thus began the memorable 
seven days' battle. Lee had adroitly withdrawn Stone- 
wall Jackson's division from the Shenandoah Valley 
and with its aid made a series of furious attacks, 
rolling the Union army back until it took a stand on 
the strong position of Malvern Hill, where it made a 
gallant defence, defeating Lee with heavy loss. 

Many of the officers thought that now was the time 
to advance, claiming that, by taking advantage of the 
confusion and disorganization in the Confederate 
ranks, Richmond could easily be captured. General 
McClellan did not share in this view. He held that the 
men were in no condition for an offensive movement, 
that he must gain a place of safety, and the only use 
he made of the victory was to continue his retreat to 
Harrison's Landing on the James River, where the 
army was intrenched. The campaign against Rich- 
mond was for the time abandoned. 

McClellan in bitter terms charged the administration 
with his defeat. He wrote to Secretary Stanton: 
" If I save the army now, I tell you plainly that I 
owe no thanks to you nor to any other persons in 
Washington. You have done your best to sacrifice this 
army." 



154 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

It soon became evident that the administration did 
not agree with him, and that he had lost its confidence. 
No new reinforcements were sent him, but a strong 
army was gathered in front of Washington, under 
command of General Pope, who had been doing some 
good work in the West, and was thought to have the 
aggressive qualities that were wanted. Lee was alert. 
He saw that the Union forces were divided and took 
advantage of McClellan's inaction to launch Jackson, 
with a strong force, upon Pope's army. In quick 
alarm the officials at Washington sent peremptory 
orders to McClellan to move his forces in all haste to 
Washington. 

A retrograde movement at once began ; but as soon 
as the alert Lee saw what was being done, he marched 
in haste to Jackson's support. His great lieutenant 
had already been victorious over Pope and the aid of 
Lee enabled the Confederates to deal the Western 
general a crushing blow. It might have been more 
disastrous still but for the fact that McClellan's ad- 
vance had already reached Washington and was in 
position to cover the retreat. General Lee, seeing that 
Washington was secure against capture, and also that 
Richmond was for the time safe from attack, now 
made a new and threatening movement, invading 
Maryland, with the hope of gaining recruits in that 
semi-southern State. 

In this dilemma the Government turned again to 
McClellan, as the one general to be trusted in an emer- 
gency. He was placed in command of Pope's army in 
addition to his own and ordered to check the invasion. 
The soldiers were filled with joy when they heard that 
" Little Mac," their favorite, was again in command. 
New hope filled their hearts and they followed their old 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 155 

commander with confidence as he led the way to Mary- 
land in rapid pursuit of Lee. 

The first encounter of the hostile forces took place 
on the 14th of September, at a pass in South Mountain. 
McClellan was victorious and continued his hasty pur- 
suit of Lee, who, seeing his foe so sharply on his 
track, was making a rapid movement of concentration 
at Antietam, on the western Potomac. Here the two 
armies came into contact on the i6th and one of the 
bloodiest battles of the war was fought, continuing for 
two days. This has often been called a drawn battle, 
but Lee's retreat across the Potomac stamps it as a 
victory for McClellan, though, as he maintained, his 
men were in no condition to pursue. 

The army had lost more than 11,000 men in the 
battle. The soldiers needed supplies of all kinds, mostly 
clothing. Their shoes were in such a condition that 
they were quite unfit for marching. Supplies were 
urgently demanded, but the shoes and clothing, so 
badly needed, did not come. It is said that, through 
some mistake, they were given to the troops around 
Washington and not sent where most needed. That 
such an error could take place under such circum- 
stances seems incredible, but worse blunders than this 
are not unknown in war. 

There were those at the time, bitter critics of McClel- 
lan, who said that Lee's army was more ragged and 
barefooted than his, and that if they could retreat, he 
could follow. However that be, he did not, and it 
is to be presumed that McClellan knew better the state 
of his army than the paper generals at home. It is now 
known that he had no authority to make an offensive 
movement into Virginia. He himself declared that 
he fought the battle of Antietam " with a rope around 



156 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

his neck," indicating that a defeat might have brought 
him a severe punishment. Victory has saved more 
than one general from the rope. 

What we know is that the Union army lay in its 
camp on the Potomac for more than a month, then the 
river was crossed and an advance made on Warrenton, 
Virginia. Here came a further delay, McClellan 
apparently deliberately preparing for battle, while 
Stanton and Halleck, then commander-in-chief, fretted 
and fumed. President Lincoln also shared in their 
dissatisfaction, and on the 7th of November, when 
McClellan had about finished his preparations for a 
battle with Lee, a messenger from Washington reached 
his camp with orders relieving him from command. 
He was bidden to turn over the army to General Burn- 
side, which he quietly did, and prepared to " repair to 
Trenton, New Jersey," as ordered. 

The news of his dismissal aroused intense indigna- 
tion in the army. We are told that the men were 
ripe for a revolt, and that some officers advised him to 
march upon Washington, turn out the Government, 
and make himself dictator. If any such foolish counsel 
was given it was not obeyed. McClellan went to Tren- 
ton, as ordered, and his military career came to an end, 
he taking no further part in the war. 

He was severely criticised, though the temperate 
judgment of history has placed his conduct in a better 
light. If he had made many enemies, he had a host 
of friends, and when, in 1864, the time for the next 
Presidental election came round, he was placed 
in nomination against Lincoln, as the candidate of 
the War Democrats. Though his chance for an elec- 
tion was very small, he received a popular vote of 
1,800,000 against 2,200,000 for Lincoln. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 157 

The war feeling has long since passed away and 
though McClellan is not classed among the world's 
great commanders, he has won a place among the lead- 
ing generals of the war. He could fight well when he 
had to, but deliberation and over-caution seem to have 
been his bane. The Confederate commanders appre- 
ciated his abilities, and it is said that when Lee was 
crossing the Potomac into Maryland, one of his officers 
saw him, with knotted brow and serious look, reading 
a despatch. 

" What is the news ?" he ventured to inquire. 

" The worst news possible," was the grave reply. 
" McClellan is in command again." 

McClellan resigned his commission as major-general 
November 8, 1864, and made a long visit to Europe, 
remaining there till 1868. After his return he was 
appointed superintendent of docks and piers in New 
York City, holding this position till 1872. He was 
elected governor of New Jersey in 1877, and in 1881 
was appointed by Congress on the Board of Managers 
of the National Home for Disabled Soldiers. Many 
tempting business offers and invitations to accept the 
presidency of colleges were made him, but he declined 
them all. 

It is difficult to find a man in military history, 
beside the first Napoleon, who equalled him in personal 
magnetism over his men. They fairly made an idol 
of him, and would obey him when all other control 
failed. As a student of military history and tactics he 
had no superior, and as a man he was of irreproachable 
character. He died at his home in Orange, New Jer- 
sey, October 28, 1885. 



ULYSSES S. GRANT, COMMANDER IN 

CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF 

THE UNION 

During the six years preceding 1861 a poor Illi- 
nois farmer, with a wife and two children and without 
trade or profession, was doing his best to make both 
ends meet and was succeeding very poorly. He worked 
hard. He raised wheat and potatoes, cut the trees 
on his farm into cordwood, and tried to sell this in St. 
Louis. Finding that this did not pay, he tried auction- 
eering, bill collecting, real estate dealing, but all to 
no purpose. Then, deeming himself a failure as a 
business man, he went to work in his father's leather 
and saddlery establishment, at Galena, Illinois. 

He was not a failure. He was simply a good man 
out of place. In the next four years he made himself 
a phenomenal success, for this poor farmer and incapa- 
ble business man was Ulysses Simpson Grant, the 
famous commander-in-chief of the Union armies in the 
Civil War, who is acknowledged as one of the greatest 
military men of modern times. 

Soldiery was not a new business for Grant. He had 
been a soldier before he was a farmer, but had made no 
special mark. He was then only a minor officer and 
had no chance to show what was in him. He needed a 
broad field and a fair opportunity, and they came. 

Grant was born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 
1822. His father obtained him admission to the West 
Point Military Academy, where he did not especially 
shine, though he got the credit of being a fine horse- 

158 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 159 

man. Yet one, at least, of his teachers must have 
seen a good promise in the young man, for he said, 
" If the country ever hears of any of these students, 
it will be of young Grant." 

He graduated at the age of twenty-one and was 
made brevet second lieutenant in a regiment stationed 
in Missouri. Two years later came the Mexican War 
and with it a chance for active service. This he 
gained in Texas under General Taylor, and later in 
Mexico under General Scott, distinguishing himself 
in several battles. At Chapultepec he was in the line 
of skirmishers that led the attack, and showed a 
courage and alertness that won him praise from Colo- 
nel Garland and promotion to the rank of first lieuten- 
ant. Discovering a church that commanded the rear 
of the gate to San Cosme, he broke into it with a few 
soldiers, carried a mountain howitzer into the steeple, 
and opened a disastrous fire on the defenders of the 
gate. This act was further rewarded in 1850 with the 
brevet rank of captain. 

Four years later, after serving at several stations, 
Grant grew tired of the monotony of barrack life and 
resigned. He had married Miss Julia T. Dent in 1848, 
and now entered upon the difficult work of making a 
living above spoken of. He was clerking in the leather 
store when the tocsin of war again sounded and Presi- 
dent Lincoln called for volunteers. Grant was among 
the first to offer his services, but by no means the first 
to be accepted. His modesty stood in the way and he 
held back while civilian generals, home-guard soldiers, 
were pressing to the front in the line of promotion. 

A meeting was called at Galena on the night of the 
President's proclamation, April 15, 1861. and Grant, 
being known for a West Pointer, was called upon to 



i6o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

preside. This was a kind of work in which he had 
no experience. He was too modest to make a good 
talker and had some trouble to get through. A 
company was raised on the spot. The members wished 
him for their captain, but he declined, though he 
promised to help them all he could. 

Doubtless he felt, when colonels and generals were 
being made from raw material on all sides, that his 
experience fitted him for a higher position than that of 
captain of volunteers. But no notice was taken of the 
offer of his services to the Government ; he went to 
Cincinnati and tried to get on the staff of General 
McClellan, but failed ; for some time he was engaged 
in the machine work of mustering in the State's quota 
of volunteers; finally Governor Yates rewarded him 
for his efficiency in this by making him colonel of the 
Twenty-First Illinois Volunteers. Thus only with 
difficulty did the man who was to prove the ablest of 
all succeed in getting into the service at all. 

On August I, 1 86 1, Grant was raised to the rank 
of brigadier-general and put in command of the dis- 
trict of Southeast Missouri. The Confederates were 
astir and in November he had a fight with them at 
Belmont, Missouri, which he captured after four hours' 
hard fighting. Soon afterwards the enemy received 
reinforcements and Grant's small force was in danger 
of being cut oflF. 

"We are surrounded!" cried the men. 

" Well," said Grant, with grim determination, " we 
must cut our way out then, as we cut our way in." 
They fought their way back to the boats, which Grant 
was the last to enter, and made their way out of the 
ugly situation. 

Grant's district was soon after increased, so as to 



HEROES OF THE ARMY i6i 

include all that part of Kentucky west of the Cumber- 
land River. In this section were two Confederate 
strongholds, Fort Henry, on the Tennessee, and Fort 
Donelson, on the Cumberland. His military judg- 
ment told him that these forts ought to be and could be 
taken, but he had difficulty in getting the consent of 
General Halleck, his superior officer, to proceed against 
them. No time was lost after the consent was given. 
A fleet of iron-clad gunboats, under Commodore 
Foote, took part in the expedition, and so effectively 
that it captured Fort Henry by the time Grant reached 
it. He immediately marched against Fort Donelson, 
where there was a garrison of twenty thousand men, 
under Buckner and other generals. The gunboats 
went round by the Ohio to join in the assault. 

For three days Grant, aided by Foote, kept up a 
close siege, extending his lines so as to cut off escape, 
and repelling every attack ; then Buckner, finding that 
his case was hopeless, sent out a flag of truce to ask 
for terms of surrender. Grant's reply was brief, stern 
and to the point : 

" No terms but unconditional and immediate sur- 
render can be accepted. I propose to move imme- 
diately upon your works." 

That settled it; Buckner immediately surrendered. 
Fifteen thousand men, three thousand horses, and a 
great quantity of arms and military stores were cap- 
tured. The country was electrified by the news. It 
was the first great victory for the North. U. S. Grant 
was said by the people to mean " Unconditional Sur- 
render Grant," and he sprang at once from compara- 
tive obscurity into a popular hero of the war. Grant 
was never again left out of sight. The eyes of the 
whole nation followed his every move. The Govern- 
xz 



i62 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

ment rewarded him by making him a major-general. 

Donelson was taken in February, 1862. In April 
Grant was at Shiloh, on the Tennessee River, where, on 
the 6th, he was attacked by surprise by Albert Sydney 
Johnston and came seriously near a disastrous defeat. 
All day Sunday the battle raged, several thousand 
Union prisoners were taken, and Grant's army w'as 
driven back a mile from its first position. The night 
that followed was one of gloom to the army. The 
brave Johnston had fallen, but he had left able leaders 
behind. Grant was one of the few whose spirit was 
unshaken. When he came to his tent that evening he 
said to his staff: 

" Well, it was tough work to-day, but we will beat 
them out of their boots to-morrow." 

His cool composure and stirring words were like a 
breath of balm to the weary and depressed offi- 
cers, who now saw that they had a fighter at their 
head. 

He kept his word. Reinforcements under Buell 
came up during the night and the next day the battle 
was resumed as hotly as before. It ended in the Con- 
federates being broken and driven back. Nightfall 
found Grant and his army in possession of the field 
and the enemy in full retreat. It was the first great 
field fight of the war, and Grant was again a victor. 
His stock was rising fast. He had proved himself, as 
his wife once said of him, "a very obstinate man." 

Little of importance was done in the West during 
the remainder of 1862, but when the spring of the 
next year opened Grant began active operations against 
the strong Confederate post at Vicksburg, a fortified 
town on a high bluff overlooking the Mississippi. 
How to capture it, and by so doing open the great 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 163 

river to Union gunboats, was the problem he had 
long in mind. For eight months he worked at it. Sher- 
man made an attack on it and failed. He could not 
get at it in the rear; he could not attack it in front; 
swamps and bayous defended it ; he tried to get at it 
by cutting a canal across a bend of the river, but a 
storm spoiled his work ; great numbers of his men 
were sick, and many of them died ; there was a clamor 
at Washington to have Grant removed, but the Presi- 
dent, who had faith in him, refused, determined that 
this persistent fighter should have his chance. 

In the end Grant determined to attack Vicksburg 
from below. On a dark night in the spring of 1863 the 
gunboats ran past the batteries. Then the army marched 
down the west shore of the river, crossed it below the 
city, and was at length in the rear of the stronghold, 
having cut loose from all communications. A series of 
battles followed, in all of which Grant was successful. 
General Pemberton was driven back into Vicksburg, 
his supplies were cut off, and the place was besieged. 
For two months the siege was kept up. Several attacks 
were made, with much loss of life and little gain, but 
the grim besieger never let go his hold and fought off 
the enemy in his rear. In the end famine came to his 
aid. The garrison and the people were starving. At 
length, on the 3d of July, 1863, Pemberton asked for 
terms, and on the 4th surrendered his whole army, 
thirty thousand strong. It was the day of Lee's retreat 
from Gettysburg and the North was in exultation. 
The general feeling was that the backbone of the Con- 
federacy was broken. Yet its broken backbone did not 
prevent it from keeping up the fight for nearly two 
years more. 

The two years of war through which the country 



^i64 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

had passed had taught President Lincoln and his 
advisers one thing: that they had one general who 
could conduct campaigns and win battles. When 
some fault-finders complained to the President that 
Grant drank too much whiskey, that long-headed 
humorist replied that he wished he knew what brand 
of whiskey General Grant used, as he would like to 
send some of the same brand to the other Union 
generals. 

Grant had been major-general of volunteers. He 
was now raised to the same rank in the regular army, 
and in October, 1863, was given command of the Mili- 
tary Division of the Mississippi, having under him 
such able commanders as Sherman, Thomas, Hooker, 
and Burnside. The point of interest was now the 
town of Chattanooga, in the valley of the Tennessee 
River, where this stream bends down into Alabama. 
Here in September the Union armies had been badly 
beaten in the hard-fought battle of Chickamauga, and 
General Thomas was now in Chattanooga, hemmed in 
by the Confederate forces, with his men and horses in 
danger of starvation. Overlooking the town is the 
lofty Lookout Mountain, two thousand feet high, and 
two miles eastward rises Missionary Ridge, five hun- 
dred feet high. General Bragg, with the victorious 
Confederate army, held both these positions, which 
were strongly fortified. 

Grant lost no time. He had been hurt by a fall 
from his horse, but as soon as he could get out of 
bed he set out for East Tennessee, telegraphing to 
General Thomas from Nashville : " Hold Chattanooga 
at all hazards. I will be there as soon as possible." 

Thomas's answer showed the type of man he was : 
" We will hold the town till we starve." 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 165 

Grant's work was prompt and decisive. He put 
new spirit into the men by the quickness with which he 
broke Bragg's hold on the river and opened the way 
for suppHes. In a month after his arrival he had 
everything ready and then he launched his army 
against Bragg's mountain posts. On November 24 
was fought the " battle above the clouds " and Look- 
out Mountain was taken. On the 25th Grant's men 
charged up the face of Missionary Ridge, swarmed 
into the strong Confederate works at the summit, and 
drove out Bragg's army, capturing many prisoners 
and guns. Since the war began up to this time Grant 
had taken about ninety thousand prisoners and nearly 
five hundred guns. 

It was evident to the whole country by this time 
that a great soldier had come in Ulysses S. Grant. 
" Grant is the first general I've had," said the Presi- 
dent. " He hasn't told me what his plans are. I 
don't know and don't want to know ; I am glad to 
find a man who can go ahead without asking me to be 
the general as well as the President." 

The demand of the country now was that Grant 
should be made commander-in-chief of all the Union 
armies, and this demand President Lincoln was very 
glad to accept. He was promoted lieutenant-general, 
a rank which only General Scott had borne before him, 
and on the 12th of March, 1864, he was appointed 
commander-in-chief. He had work cut out for him. 
Hitherto he had not met in battle the greatest of the 
Confederate commanders, Robert E. Lee. Since the 
battle of Gettysburg the two armies in Virginia had 
been facing each other, Lee on the defensive, Meade 
moving up and down, hesitating to strike. 

Grant did not hesitate. He took hold with vim. 



i66 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Sherman was put in command at Chattanooga, with 
orders to march upon Atlanta. He took command 
himself in Virginia, with Richmond for his goal. On 
May 3 the advance began. There was no going around 
by water now ; his course lay straight forward over all 
obstacles of men and nature. In General Lee he had 
an opponent such as he had not yet met, and nothing 
but the policy of " hammering away " would answer. 
On May 5 and 6 was fought the terrible battle of the 
Wilderness. As Grant could not drive Lee from his 
ground, he marched around his flank and went on, 
leaving Lee to do what he pleased. 

Lee faced him again at Spottsylvania and here fight- 
ing continued, with intervals of cessation, for five 
days, a whole Confederate division being captured on 
the 1 2th. " I propose to fight it out on this line if it 
takes all summer," read Grant's famous telegram. 

Thus it went on, a second flank movement and a 
battle at North Anna ; a third flank movement and a 
battle at Cold Harbor, in which Grant's men were 
terribly slaughtered. But still he went straight on, 
crossed the James River on June 14 and 15, and began 
the long-continued siege of Petersburg. He might 
fairly have been called " Grant the Hammerer." 

" The great thing about Grant," said the President, 
" is his cool persistency. He is not easily excited and 
has the grip of a bulldog when he once gets his teeth 
in ; nothing can shake him off." 

" I think there is no doubt that Grant is retreating," 
said General Gordon to Lee. during a pause in the 
battle of the Wilderness. 

" You are mistaken," said Lee, shaking his head. 
" Grant is not a retreating man." 

There were no wasted days in the siege of Peters- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 167 

burg. Lee tried his old tactics of a threatening move 
upon Washington, but Grant sent Sheridan to deal 
with Early and kept on. Not only " all summer," but 
all winter and into the next spring, the siege con- 
tinued. At length, on the ist of April, 1865, the 
steady pressure won. The fort at Five Forks was 
taken, with five thousand prisoners. On the 2d the 
works of Petersburg gave way and other thousands 
were taken. That night Lee began his last retreat. On 
the 7th he was rounded up at Appomattox. On the 
9th he surrendered. The war was at an end and Grant 
was hailed as the great hero of the North. 

A noble-hearted man, he proved a generous victor. 
Officers and men of the Confederate army were 
paroled, the officers being allowed to retain their side 
arms, baggage and horses, and the cavalry, with 
generous consideration, being given their horses, that 
they might use them for the spring plowing. " The 
United States does not need the horses," said Grant, 
" and these men, most of whom are small farmers, do." 
They had ceased to fight ; they needed to live ; every 
man who claimed to own a horse or mule was allowed 
to take it and no questions were asked. 

Whatever we may say or think about the ethics of 
war, a great soldier is always the world's hero, and 
such was General Grant — the more so as he had 
fought, not for ambition and power, but to preserve the 
unity of a great country. Such proved to be the case 
when he made the tour of the world in 1877, his 
journey being a continual ovation of the nations from 
its start to its close. 

In 1866 Congress revived the grade of " general of 
the army " and Grant was appointed to that high posi- 
tion. He served as secretarv of war for a few months 



i68 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

in 1867 under President Johnson, and in 1868 was 
nominated as the RepubHcan candidate for President. 
The last words of his letter accepting this nomination 
were, " Let us have peace," and this phrase became the 
watchword of the campaign. He was elected by two 
hundred and fourteen against eighty electoral votes. 
In 1872 he was again a candidate, and this time re- 
ceived two hundred and eighty-six against sixty-three 
electoral votes. 

Grant was a soldier, not a statesman, and like the 
great soldiers who had been elected to the Presidency 
before him there were mistakes in his administration. 
His loyalty to his friends made him refuse to believe 
anything that was said against them and some shrewd 
and dishonest politicians traded upon this and brought 
his management of affairs into disrepute. His trust in 
his friends led to serious personal disaster in his later 
life. After his two years' triumphal journey round 
the world, where people flocked to see and honor him 
as if he had been a Napoleon or a Csesar, he settled in 
New York, and at the solicitation of his son joined 
the brokerage firm of Ward & Fisk and put all his 
savings into it. 

Grant's trust in his partners was such that he paid 
no attention to their operations. The business seemed 
so prosperous and such glowing statements were made 
that he grew to believe himself worth a million dollars. 
A sudden exposure came in May, 1884. Ward 
absconded and the business proved to be ruined. 
Grant had been used as a decoy by the swindler. Only 
a few days before, at Ward's suggestion, he had bor- 
rowed one hundred thousand dollars from William H. 
Vanderbilt. All was gone, his money, his house, and, 
as he thought, his honor. But it was soon proved 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 169 

that he was a victim, not a culprit. He had been 
deceived by villains. A great success as a soldier, 
his whole private life proved him unfitted to be a man 
of business. 

His only hope of making provision for his family 
was by the writing of his " Memoirs," which he was 
assured would have an enormous sale. But a new 
trouble came upon him. A pain in his throat developed 
into a cancer, and he went on with the work under 
intense physical torment. His one comfort during 
this suffering was that Congress passed a bill placing 
him on the retired list of the army, an act which 
taught him that the act of his villanous partner had 
not ruined his reputation and that his good name and 
fame were secured. He had barely time to write the 
last page of his work when, on the 23d of July, 1885, 
death came to relieve him of his agony. 

The body of the great soldier was interred, after a 
funeral pageant such as had never before been seen in 
America, in a noble mausoleum at Riverside Park, 
New York, which has ever since been a place of 
pilgrimage for his admiring countrymen. 



ROBERT E. LEE, COMMANDER IN CHIEF 
OF THE CONFEDERATE ARMIES 

The Lee family long played an important part in 
Virginia and in the country at large. While the 
Washingtons gave us one great name, the Lees were 
prolific in names of prominence. Three leading mem- 
bers of the family date from Revolutionary times, 
Richard Henry Lee, who had the honor of offering 
the resolution in Congress that led to the Declaration 
of Independence ; Henry Lee, the " Light-Horse 
Harry " of the patriotic army, and the eulogist of 
Washington, author of the famous " First in war, 
first in peace, and first in the hearts of his country- 
men ! " and Arthur Lee, who was Franklin's fellow- 
envoy in obtaining the treaty of alliance with France. 
Another, Francis Lightfoot Lee, joined his brother, 
Richard Henry, in signing the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence. 

In the Civil War there were three generals of the 
Lee family, one of them, Robert Edward Lee, being 
one of the greatest soldiers our country has known, 
as well as one of its greatest and most pure-minded 
men. The son of the famous " Light-Horse Harry," 
he was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia, on 
the 19th of January, 1807, being fifteen years older 
than his great antagonist. General Grant. 

Lee was entered as a cadet at West Point and 

graduated at the head of his class in 1829. Appointed 

lieutenant in a corps of engineers, he was engaged 

for a number of years in harbor and fortress and other 

170 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 171 

engineering work, being made captain in 1838. He 
married in 1832 the daughter of George Washington 
Custis, the adopted son of General Washington, and 
with her obtained the ArHngton House on the Poto- 
mac opposite Washington. 

Lee's first field service came in the Mexican War, 
where he was chief engineer of General Scott's army 
and won high honor by his superior ability. The 
capture of Vera Cruz was said by Scott to be due to 
Captain Lee's skill. In the operations around the City 
of Mexico there was no better or braver man, and 
once, when wounded at Chapultepec, he kept steadily 
at his work until he fainted from the effect of his 
wound. Scott admired him so much that he made 
him his warm personal friend, and at the end of the 
war he held the brevet rank of colonel. We are told 
that one day, while a party of ofificers were enjoying 
their wine in the City of Mexico, some one proposed the 
health of Lee, the brave engineer who had found 
the way for them into the city. On looking round for 
him he was not to be seen, and the man sent for him 
found him hard at work over a map which he could 
not be persuaded to leave to join the wassailers. Duty 
with him came first ; pleasure last, if at all. 

The war ended, he was variously engaged. For 
three years he was superintendent at West Point. 
Then he went to Texas as lieutenant-colonel of a regi- 
ment. He lived quietly at home for two years before 
the Civil War, and when the John Brown raid at 
Harper's Ferry was made in 1859 Lee was sent there 
with a body of troops. He battered down the door of 
the engine house, in which Brown and the other raiders 
were intrenched, captured them and turned them over 
to the authorities. 



172 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

In 1861 he was for a time in doubt what course to 
pursue. He did not approve of the secession move- 
ment in the States, but the feeUng of State loyalty 
was strong in him, as it was generally in the South, and 
when Virginia seceded he deemed it his duty to join 
her. General Scott and others urged him to remain 
in the Union but he could not be persuaded. He wrote 
to his sister : " With all my devotion to the Union, 
and the feeling of loyalty and duty as an American 
citizen, I have not been able to make up my mind 
to raise my hand against my relatives, my children, my 
home. I have therefore resigned my position in the 
army and, save in defence of my native State, I hope I 
may never be called upon to draw my sword." 

His sword once drawn, no evidence of a divided 
feeling of allegiance was shown in Lee's conduct. He 
fought for the South with the earnestness and energy 
of a patriot defending his home and his native land. 
He had been appointed a colonel of cavalry in the 
United States army in March, 1861. On the 20th of 
April he resigned his commission, and was imme- 
diately appointed by the authorities at Richmond 
major-general of all the forces under their control. In 
July his rank was fixed as brigadier-general in the 
Confederate army. As such he was at first opposed to 
General Rosecrans in western Virginia, and then was 
sent south, where he planned the defences of the South 
Carolina coast. These proved impregnable until the 
march of Sherman's army in 1865. 

Lee continued in a subordinate position until the 
wounding of General Johnston at Fair Oaks in June, 
1862, when he was given chief command of the army 
defending Richmond, the Confederate capital. He was 
not long in demonstrating that a new hand was at 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 173 

the helm. Calling upon " Stonewall " Jackson to 
join him from the Shenandoah Valley, on the 26th of 
June he attacked the forces of General McClellan at 
Mechanicsville with such force and vigor that they 
were driven back in dismay. Day after day the attack 
was repeated, McClellan retreating from point to 
point, until July i, when he made a stand in a strong 
position on Malvern Hill and repulsed Lee with heavy 
loss. But the desperate fighting had continued for a 
whole week, thousands had fallen on the blood-stained 
field, the Union commander had the fight taken out 
of him and continued to retreat to the James River, 
intrenching himself against his dashing antagonist. 

Lee now made a very daring move. Feeling safe 
against danger from McClellan, he sent Jackson north 
to deal with the army which had been gathered under 
General Pope in front of Washington. As soon as the 
alarmed Union authorities saw this they recalled 
McClellan in haste to Washington and the Union 
forces began to return. Lee at once took advantage 
of this opportunity, cut loose from Richmond, marched 
hastily north, and joined Jackson, then fiercely battling 
with Pope. The result was a disastrous defeat of the 
Union army, the second Bull Run battle, as it was 
called, being as decided a victory for the South as the 
first, of the year before. 

Learning that the whole Union army was withdrawn 
from the James and that Richmond was safe, and 
learning also that Washington could not be taken, 
Lee's next step was to invade Maryland, in the hope 
of gaining recruits in that semi-Southern State. Send- 
ing Jackson against Harper's Ferry, that stronghold 
was quickly captured, with eleven thousand men and 
seventy-two guns. McClellan meanwhile, at the head 



174 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of a powerful army, was hot in pursuit, and on Sep- 
tember 17 the two armies met at Antietam, where one 
of the most desperate battles of the war was fought. 
Both sides claimed victory, but Lee retreated to Vir- 
ginia, McClellan moving very deliberately in pursuit. 

In the months that followed the authorities at Wash- 
ington seemed at their wits' ends where to find a gen- 
eral who could be trusted to face the redoubtable Lee. 
Grant was winning battles in the West, but he could 
not be spared from there. McClellan had shown that 
he could fight, but between battles he took his time 
too decidedly to please Lincoln and Stanton, and was 
now removed, General Burnside being chosen in his 
place. Burnside knew that he had been put at the head 
of the army to fight, and lost no time in doing so. He 
attacked Lee in his strong intrenchments at Fredericks- 
burg on December 13, and was thoroughly punished 
for his temerity, being driven back with terrible loss in 
killed and wounded. General Hooker was selected to 
succeed him and next May attacked Lee in force at 
Chancellorsville, in the Wilderness region. He, too, 
was soundly beaten and forced to retreat with heavy 
loss. 

The drama of Lee's career now shifts to Gettys- 
burg, in Pennsylvania, which State he invaded with 
his victorious veterans shortly after Hooker's repulse. 
Here the Union army faced him under Meade, a 
third new general, and the great three days' battle of 
July 1-3 took place. Lee fought like one struggling 
for life or death, but the strength of Meade's position 
enabled him to withstand the desperate assaults of his 
antagonist, and on the 4th Lee began his retreat. 
Both sides had lost heavily, but the North had far 
greater recuperative powers than the South and it 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 175 

has ever since been recognized that Gettysburg was 
the turning point in the war. Until then the tide had 
been rising. Then it began to recede. 

Lee had hitherto been fighting eagerly on the 
offensive, and the brilliancy of his marches and sudden- 
ness of his blows had attracted the attention and 
admiration of the world. It was felt that a new 
great soldier had come, one with much of the Napole- 
onic dash and fervor. In the spring of 1864 the scene 
changed. Grant came up from his victories in the 
South and pitted himself against the great Southern 
commander, giant against giant. Thenceforth Lee's 
warfare was a defensive one, but he showed himself 
as brilliant in this as in the offensive, and continued 
to win admiration from the world. 

" General Lee is a phenomenon," said " Stonewall " 
Jackson. " He is the only man I would follow 
bHndfold." 

This praise was not misplaced. Lee had shown him- 
self able in the first two years of the war, and only 
the fact that he was attempting an impossible task 
stood in the way of far greater success. In the final 
years he was to show himself as able, in meeting the 
blows of Grant, the hammerer. It was now a question 
of endurance, not of brilliant movements and stunning 
strokes. Lee's army had lost heavily and it was impos- 
sible to bring it back to its strength. Grant had 
a vast population to draw from and unlimited sources 
of food and supplies. This last year was a death 
struggle. Yet the devotion of the Confederate veterans 
to their commander and their confidence in his skill and 
genius enabled them to bear up against Grant's stern 
and sturdy campaign. 

On May 5, 1864, the struggle between the two 



176 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

giants of the war began, in that rugged Wilderness 
where Hooker had been beaten a year before. For two 
days the battle was kept up, then Grant, finding that 
Lee could not be driven from his hold, cut loose himself 
and made a flank march towards Richmond. " Grant 
is not a retreating man," said Lee. He must face him 
or all would be lost. 

He did face him, sternly and unyieldingly, at Spott- 
sylvania ; again at North Anna ; still again at Cold 
Harbor, where Grant hurled his columns to death and 
destruction against Lee's inflexible lines. Grant had 
learned by this time that Lee was a tower of strength 
in defence. His lines simply could not be broken. 
Nothing remained but a renewal of the flank move- 
ment, and the Union armies swung across the James 
River and marched in force upon Petersburg. As 
before, Lee was there to meet them, this time effec- 
tively, for the policy of the flank movement had reached 
its limit. It was now brought to a question of steady 
pounding, and this for the greater part of a year Grant 
kept up. 

Vast and mighty were the earthworks that rose be- 
tween Richmond and Petersburg, with an army behind 
and an army in front of them, hammering away inces- 
santly through summer, autumn, and winter, until 
spring came again. But the hammering was steadily 
wearing out Lee's strength. His army decreased ; his 
food supplies fell off ; at length came the day when the 
long line could be held no longer and Richmond had to 
be abandoned. Then the swift Union cavalry swept 
round in front of the starving veterans of the Con- 
federacy, the army was surrounded and nothing but 
surrender remained. It was a heart-breaking day to 
General Lee when he had to lay down his arms at 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 177 

Appomattox to the conqueror, on that April 9, 1865, 
which witnessed the fall of the Confederacy after its 
strenuous four years' struggle. 

This is a very brief statement of the record of Robert 
E. Lee in the Civil War. History tells the tale of his 
life during that period. All we need say further is that 
he proved himself a soldier of extraordinary ability, 
a daring, impulsive, energetic man, great alike in 
attack and in defence, utterly unlike Grant in his 
methods and character. Only when these two men 
came together was the fate of the Confederacy decided. 
Had they been equal in resources it is impossible to 
tell which would have won. Grant with his bulldog 
tenacity, Lee with his brilliancy in attack, his unyield- 
ingness in defence. He was overmatched, and he 
fell. That is the utmost that can now be said. 

General Lee was a man of kindly and generous 
nature. Many tales are told, revealing qualities which 
endeared him to all who knew him. Once, while 
inspecting some batteries near the Union lines, he 
ordered the soldiers back out of danger. He had to be 
there ; they were not needed. On his way back he 
stopped, despite the danger, to pick up a young 
sparrow that had fallen from the nest and put it back 
into its home. After Chancellorsville, when loudly 
cheered by his men, he refused to take credit for the 
victory ; he said it belonged to Jackson, who had fallen. 
Many anecdotes have been told showing his kindliness 
of heart and the generosity of his nature, and he is 
everywhere looked upon as a pure-minded, warm- 
hearted, self-sacrificing man, devoted to what he 
deemed his duty, and one of the great soldiers of 
modern times. 

The war over, General Lee sought a quiet, modest 
12 



178 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

home in Powhatan County, Virginia, and lived there 
in simple retirement with his family. Many positions 
which would have given him liberal salary with little 
labor were offered him, but he declined them all. He 
wanted no money which he did not earn. Finally he 
accepted the presidency of Washington College, at 
Lexington, Virginia, believing that he could there 
make himself of use and influence. His task was a 
difficult one, but he managed it ably and conscien- 
tiously. His reputation brought hosts of students to 
the college, which prospered greatly under his control. 

He did not govern the college like an army, but was 
kind and indulgent in his treatment of the students 
and won their respect and alTection as he had formerly 
done that of his soldiers. His appeal to their higher 
sentiments brought from them the best that was in 
them, they being ashamed to do less than their best 
when they felt that General Lee's eye was upon them. 

Here he died October 12, 1870, five years after the 
war which had given him world-wide fame. Upon his 
death the name of the college was changed to Wash- 
ington and Lee University, as a monument to the great 
soldier who had served as its president. Since those 
days the bitterness of the Civil War feeling has passed 
away, and men now give General Lee credit for honor 
and integrity in the feelings that made him oppose 
the Union, however much they may feel that he took 
a narrow and sectional view of his duty to his country. 



WILLIAM T. SHERMAN, HERO OF THE 
MARCH THROUGH GEORGIA 

If General Grant had not risen to the position of 
commander-in-chief of the Union armies General Sher- 
man might have done so, for the American Civil War 
produced no abler or more popular soldier. Grant 
looked upon him as his right-hand man, and while he 
was hammering away at Lee in Virginia, Sherman was 
fighting his way from Chattanooga to Atlanta and 
making his spectacular march " from Atlanta to 
the sea " and from Savannah to Raleigh. A man 
of nervous temperament and intense energy, with a 
genius for war, Sherman rarely struck without some- 
thing giving way, and among the famous heroes of 
the Civil War the North had no greater favorite. 

William Tecumseh Sherman was born at Lancaster, 
Ohio, on the 8th of February, 1820. His father, 
Charles R. Sherman, had once been a judge of the 
superior court of Ohio, and his brother, John Sher- 
man, became an American senator. Secretary of the 
Treasury, and Secretary of State. After his father's 
death in 1829, leaving a large family and small income, 
William was adopted as a son by Senator Thomas 
Ewing, a devoted friend of his father, and grew up in 
his family. Here he formed a warm attachment for 
the senator's daughter Ellen, then a charming girl, 
whom he continued to love and who in time became 
his wife. 

Senator Ewing gained him admission to the West 
Point Military Academy in 1836. Here he was a dili- 

179 



i8o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

gent student, though he showed no special desire to be 
a soldier. Graduating in 1840, he was commissioned 
second lieutenant in the artillery service, and during 
the years that followed was kept busily engaged, at 
first against the Seminoles in Florida, and afterwards 
at Fort Moultrie and in California. His marriage with 
Ellen Ewing took place in Washington in 1850, he was 
made captain in 1851, and in 1853 he resigned from 
the army and became a banker in San Francisco. 

During the eight years that followed Sherman was 
not very successful in business. The bank went out 
of existence in 1857; then he vainly tried his hand 
as a lawyer in Kansas, and in i860 got a position as 
superintendent of a new military academy in Louisi- 
ana. In January, 1861, the Southern States were 
seceding and Sherman was warmly implored to serve 
under the flag of the South. His reply was warm with 
patriotism : " I will maintain my allegiance to the old 
Constitution as long as a fragment of it survives." 

In March he went to Washington, where his brother 
John was just taking his seat in the Senate. The two 
tried in vain to induce the President to prepare for war ; 
but when Fort Sumter was fired upon there was a 
sudden change, seventy-five thousand three-months' 
men were called out, and Sherman was sent for. 
When he reached Washington he told the authorities 
that they were making a great mistake by enlisting 
short-term men. " You might as well try to put out the 
flames of a burning house with a squirt gun," he said, 
and refused to go to Ohio to enroll three-months' 
volunteers. He was one of the few men in the army 
who saw from the start that the government had a 
great war, not a temporary rebellion, on its hands. 

In June Sherman was commissioned colonel of an 



HEROES OF THE ARMY i8i 

infantry regiment, and at the battle of Bull Run, July 
21, he commanded a brigade, doing his utmost to save 
the army from defeat. On August 3 he was made 
brigadier-general of volunteers and in September 
was sent to Kentucky. In October he was given the 
chief command of that department, and the secretary 
of war asked him how many men he needed. He 
replied, with a keen prevision of coming events, " sixty 
thousand to drive the enemy out of Kentucky and two 
hundred thousand to finish the war in this section." 
This was considered so wildly extravagant that he was 
removed from the command, as an unsafe, if not men- 
tally deficient man, and was put in a subordinate posi- 
tion under General Halleck. It was not long before 
they learned that the man they had deemed insane was 
wiser than they. 

It was not till April, 1862, that Sherman, as com- 
mander of the fifth division of General Grant's army, 
was able to show the metal of which he was made. 
On the 6th and 7th of that month the desperate battle 
of Shiloh was fought, and here his coolness, skill, and 
energy went far to save the day. Grant wrote of him, 
" At the battle of Shiloh, on the first day, he held, with 
raw troops, the key-point of the landing. . . , To 
his individual efforts I am indebted for the success 
of that battle." Halleck also wrote to the effect that 
Sherman saved the fortunes of the day on the 6th. 
On the 7th he led his battered troops with heroic 
energy into the fight, and after the victory he pushed 
out and whipped the enemy's cavalry, capturing a 
large supply of ammunition. Rousseau said of him, 
" He fights by the week." During the battle he was 
wounded in the hand and had three horses shot under 
him. 



i82 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

It was evident that in Sherman the North had a 
fighting soldier, and in May he was raised in rank to 
major-general of volunteers. A few days later he 
took an active part in the siege of Corinth, which was 
evacuated on the 29th. Sherman's next important 
work was in Grant's operations against Vicksburg, 
which began in December, 1862, and continued till 
July, 1863. He led the division that made the first 
direct assault upon Vicksburg, striking at the strong- 
hold from the mouth of the Yazoo River, on the north 
side. The attempt was unsuccessful, not from any lack 
of courage or skill, but simply because the place was 
too strong to be taken by assault. Only a siege could 
reduce it, and this Grant recognized when he cut loose 
from his base and " swung around to the south." 

In the battles that followed in the rear of Vicksburg 
Sherman was active ; he took part in an assault on the 
city on May 22, and after its fall on July 4, he marched 
against General Johnston and drove him from Jackson, 
the capital of Mississippi. About this time he ex- 
pressed his sentiments as follows : " The people of 
the North must conquer or be conquered. There can 
be no middle course." The event proved that he was 
correct in this as in his former utterances. 

Chattanooga, on the Tennessee, was the next point 
of interest. Here General Thomas, after the day of 
disaster at Chickamauga, led his troops and held the 
place, threatened by Bragg in front and by starvation 
in the rear. Grant hurried to his relief, and sent for 
Sherman, then in command at Memphis, four hundred 
miles away. He responded with his usual promptness 
and by a forced march reached Chattanooga about 
November 15. It was the men under his command 
who, on the 25th, led by him, made that phenomenal 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 183 

rush up the steep face of Missionary Ridge, which 
swept Bragg and his men from their strongholds, and 
put an effectual end to the siege. Immediately after- 
wards he marched to the relief of Burnside, who was 
besieged at Knoxville, his cavalry reaching there on the 
3d of December, to find that the enemy had not waited 
for his coming. He wrote in his official report : 

" The men had marched for long periods, without 
regular rations of any kind, through mud and over 
rocks, sometimes barefoot, and without a murmur. 
Without a moment's rest, after a march of over four 
hundred miles, without sleep for three successive 
nights, they crossed the Tennessee River, fought their 
part in the battle of Chattanooga, pursued the enemy 
out of Tennessee, then turned once more one hundred 
miles north and compelled Longstreet to raise the siege 
of Knoxville, which had been a source of anxiety to 
the whole country." 

During the winter that followed Sherman made a 
raid to Meridian, in central Mississippi, destroying 
railroads and capturing large quantities of stores. But 
the great opportunity in his career came after March 
12, 1864, when Grant was made commander-in-chief of 
all the armies. The forces between the Mississippi and 
the Alleghanies were put under Sherman, and when 
Grant projected his great movement against Lee in 
the beginning of May, he ordered Sherman to move at 
the same time against Johnston, then commanding the 
Confederate forces in his front. Grant wrote to him 
with warm commendation, saying: "I express my 
thanks to you and McPherson as the men to whom, 
above all others, I feel indebted for whatever I have 
had of success." 

On May 5, the movement began. Of its purpose 



i84 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Sherman, in his " Memoirs," says, " Neither Atlanta, 
Augusta, nor Savannah was the objective, but the 
' army of Joe Johnston,' go where it might." Against 
that army he moved, Johnston retreating, striking as 
he went, Sherman persistently advancing. For several 
months marching and fighting were almost continuous. 
The country was broken, and covered with brush and 
woodland, its roads or tracks, mean at the best, be- 
coming quagmires whenever it rained. At every 
available spot Johnston impeded the march. Battles 
were fought at each defensive point, the hardest that 
at Kenesaw Mountain, where Sherman lost twenty- 
five hundred men. Sherman's progress resembled that 
of Grant. When his opponent could not be driven 
out he was flanked and forced to retire to another 
strong point. 

The Fabian policy of the cautious Johnston did not 
please the cabinet generals at Richmond. They wanted 
a more aggressive general, a man who would seek to 
drive Sherman back, and about midsummer they 
removed Johnston and put the hard fighter Hood in his 
place. They lost rather than gained by the change. 
Hood made furious attacks, lost men by the thousands, 
but met with continued defeat, and on the ist of Sep- 
tember, fearing to be surrounded in Atlanta and cut oflF 
from his base of supplies, he evacuated that town, 
leaving it to Sherman's troops. 

The news of the fall of Atlanta filled the North with 
delight. Sherman was the hero of the hour. At all the 
chief military posts a salute of one hundred guns was 
fired in his honor. He had won the first great success 
of the year. Grant highly praised the brilliancy of his 
campaign. His official reward was a promotion to 
major-general in the regular army. There he lay, in 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 185 

the heart of the Confederacy, his work only begun, not 
ended. Before taking another step he awaited the 
movements of his antagonist. When they came Sher- 
man was deHghted. Hood, finding himself helpless 
before his strong foe, and knowing it to be useless to 
strike in front, decided to strike from the rear, to cut 
Sherman's long line of communication, and by threat- 
ening his base of supplies, to force him to retreat. He 
could not have done anything more to the liking of his 
shrewd antagonist. " If Hood will go to Tennessee," 
said Sherman, with a chuckle, " I will supply him with 
rations for the trip." All he did was to send General 
Thomas to Nashville to protect his rear while he him- 
self prepared for a new and daring project, to per- 
form which he wanted Hood and his veterans out of 
the way. 

Georgia lay before him, the greatest source of supply 
for the Confederate armies, " the workshop and corn- 
crib of the South." Savannah lay on the sea, nearly 
three hundred miles away. The withdrawal of Hood 
had left the field open before him. He could let go 
of his base of supplies. Georgia was able to feed him 
and his army. Savannah once reached, the ships of 
the North could bring all he needed. It was a great 
and spectacular plan, the device of a soldier of genius. 

None knew of his project, north or south. Nothing 
so bold was dreamed of. He and his army simply 
disappeared from view and for a month nothing was 
heard of them. There was intense anxiety in the North 
about his fate, many fearing that he had walked 
into a trap from which he might never escape. Presi- 
dent Lincoln did not appear to share this anxiety. 
He had as much confidence in Sherman as in Grant 
and simply said to anxious inquirers, in his humorous 



i86 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

way, " I know which hole he went in at, but I do not 
know which hole he will come out at." 

Meanwhile Sherman was " marching through Geor- 
gia," with hardly an enemy to oppose him, with 
scarcely an obstacle in his path. He set out from At- 
lanta on November i6, with an army sixty-two thou- 
sand strong. Through Georgia he swept, with a front 
thirty miles from wing to wing, cutting a broad swath 
through the centre of the State, gathering food from 
the country, rendering it incapable of furnishing sup- 
plies to the Confederacy. It was to the soldiers like a 
holiday march. To the slaves it was the " day of jubi- 
lee." Thousands of them followed the army, flocking 
from every plantation, keeping on for miles when told 
that there was no food to give them. They were con- 
tent to starve, if they could only gain freedom. 

On December 13, Fort McAllister, near Savannah, 
was captured. On the 21st the city surrendered. Two 
days afterwards Sherman sent the President a dispatch 
that has become famous : " I beg to present you as 
a Christmas gift the city of Savannah, with one 
hundred and fifty guns and plenty of ammunition, and 
about twenty-five thousand bales of cotton." The suc- 
cess of the daring march was brilliant. Sherman 
wrote, "We have not lost a wagon on the trip and our 
trains are in a better condition than when we started." 

The news of this great march filled the North with 
exultation. There was a strain of the romantic and 
unusual in it that riveted men's attention. Sherman's 
enterprise had proved an easy and safe one, but it 
seemed as if he had plunged through a sea of danger, 
and men looked on him as if he was one of the daring 
knights-errant of old. For a time nothing was talked 
of but Sherman's wonderful march, and the song in 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 187 

which it was commemorated is still a favorite march- 
ing tune. 

But the work of dissecting the Confederacy, which 
he had set out to do, was but half accomplished. After 
giving his men a thorough rest in Atlanta, he set out 
on January 15, 1865, to cut it in twain from south to 
north. Northward he went, opposition melting away 
before him. Town after town was occupied. Colum- 
bia, the beautiful capital of South Carolina, took fire 
from burning cotton and was more than half consumed. 
Charleston, which had held out for four years against 
all attacks from the sea, surrendered without a blow 
and without Sherman's going near it. North Carolina 
was reached and here Sherman for the first time found 
a strong force, under his old opponent, General Johns- 
ton, gathered to meet him. Only one battle was 
fought, at Bentonville, on March 21, in which Johnston 
was beaten with heavy loss. He fell back on Raleigh, 
and Sherman was pursuing him when, on April 11, 
news reached him of General Lee's surrender two 
days before. 

Further fighting would have been murder. The 
Confederacy was conquered. Its leaders recognized this, 
and on April 26 Johnston surrendered, being granted 
the same terms as were given to General Lee. The 
last appearance of Sherman's army in history was on 
May 24, in Washington, where it took part in the great 
two days' review. Sherman, in his " Memoirs," says 
of it as it appeared that day : " It was, in my judgment, 
the most magnificent army in existence, sixty-five 
thousand men in splendid physique, who had just com- 
pleted a march of nearly two thousand miles in a 
hostile country." 

With this review the spectacular portion of Sher- 



1 88 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

man's life ended. He remained a soldier, honored and 
revered, seeking no political honors, asking for no 
place or privilege. When, in 1868, Grant was ap- 
pointed general of the army, Sherman succeeded him 
as lieutenant-general. When Grant was inaugurated 
as President, March 4, 1869, Sherman was raised to the 
rank of general. He was relieved at his own request, 
November i, 1883, and was succeeded by Sheridan. 
He then took up his residence in St. Louis, afterwards 
removing to New York, where he died February 14, 
1891. 

An able critic thus sums up Sherman's qualities as 
a soldier : " Above all his other excellencies shone his 
promptitude, celerity, and immeasurable activity. What 
for some commanders were winter-quarters were to 
him a bivouac. Always ready for the start, indefatig- 
able on the march, omnipresent in battle, relentless 
in pursuit. General Sherman made himself not only 
more feared but more respected by the enemy than 
any general in the national armies save, perhaps, the 
one who commanded them all." 

Sherman was able not only as a soldier but as a 
writer. His " Memoirs " tell admirably the story of his 
military career and have given him a high literary repu- 
tation. As a speaker he was ready and apt, and said 
so many striking things that Chauncey Depew declared 
that " he never ought to be permitted to go anywhere 
without being accompanied by a stenographer." He 
was not partisan either in politics or religion. In 
politics no one could tell which party he favored, while 
in religion he expressed his creed in the following- 
pithy sentence : 

" If men will only act half as well as they know 
how, God will forgive them the balance." 



THOMAS J. JACKSON, THE STONE WALL 
OF THE CONFEDERACY 

There was no great amount of piety among the 
generals of the Civil War. They were engaged in a 
business which called for other qualities than that of 
religious devotion. But one of the greatest of them 
was an ardent Christian, a man of prayer and con- 
science, of religious earnestness alike in war and peace. 
This was Thomas Jonathan Jackson, General Lee's 
right-hand man, who aided his superior in his great 
successes as much as Sherman and Sheridan aided 
Grant. The fall of Jackson on the field of Chancel- 
lorsville was a more serious disaster to Lee than the 
loss of that great battle would have been. 

This famous soldier was born in Clarksburg, Vir- 
ginia, January 21, 1824. He was of that hardy Scotch- 
Irish stock which has given so much of strength and 
resolute virtue to the population of our Middle States. 
He entered the military academy at West Point in 1843 
so poorly equipped in education that he never took a 
high standing in his classes, though earnest and con- 
scientious in his studies. He showed there the same 
qualities which he afterwards exhibited, courage, 
patience, constancy of purpose, faithfulness to duty, 
and a simplicity of character which won everyone's 
confidence. 

Though looked on as a dull and slow student, he 
graduated in 1846 seventeenth in a class of fifty-nine, 
and at once was sent as an artillery lieutenant to the 
war in Mexico, where he distinguished himself in 

189 



I90 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Scott's campaign, being twice brevetted for gallant 
conduct. When the war ended he bore the rank of 
first lieutenant and for several years was on duty at 
Norfolk harbor and in Florida. Ill health in 1857 
caused him to resign from the army and he soon after 
accepted the position of professor of natural philosophy 
and military tactics in the military academy at Lexing- 
ton, Virginia. 

Jackson had the credit of being a good teacher, but 
he was a man of many peculiarities, one of these being 
an extreme bashfulness that gave an opening for 
much amusement to the students. It was while at 
Lexington that he became a member of the Presby- 
terian Church, and his religious fervor was always 
afterwards notable. Christian duty was his first 
thought at all times and seasons and the habit of prayer 
became a part of his very life. As he himself said, " I 
have made the practice habitual, and I can no more 
forget it than forget to drink when I am thirsty." 

His conscientiousness was so great that on one 
occasion, on discovering that he had made a mistake 
in sending a student to his seat for an error in recita- 
tion, he could not rest an instant till he had visited the 
student in his room and set the matter right. To do 
so he had to walk a long distance through sleet and 
snow of a winter's night. Most men would have 
waited for the next day's session, but that was not 
Jackson's idea of duty. 

In politics Jackson was a State-rights Democrat of 
the strictest school. His State was his country, and 
when Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861 he felt 
it his religious duty to go with it to the end. His 
spirit was that of a patriot called to the defence of 
his native land. He wrote to the governor, offering 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 191 

to serve in any position, and as he had borne the 
brevet title of major in the United States service, the 
governor at once appointed him colonel of an infantry 
regiment and sent him to Harper's Ferry, where on 
May 3 he took possession of the United States arsenal. 

Such were the events preceding Jackson's two years 
of active life as a Confederate soldier. As a com- 
mander of men the shyness he exhibited before college 
students left him, and he displayed the dignity and 
self-possession necessary to success as a soldier. On 
the 21 st of July he found himself in command of a 
brigade on the field of Bull Run, the first important 
battle of the war. Here, while the Confederate line 
was wavering before the Federal attack and the result 
seemed in serious doubt, Jackson held his men with 
immovable firmness, repelling all assaults. General 
Bee, who was trying to rally his broken brigade, 
pointed to Jackson's men and called out : *' Look at 
those Virginians ! They are standing like a stone 
wall." 

This is the story told of the origin of the famous 
appellation of " Stonewall " Jackson, which clung to 
him for the remainder of his life, while his men came 
to be known as the " Stonewall brigade." Wounded 
in the hand during this battle, he would not leave the 
field till the fight was over, and then would not permit 
the surgeon to attend to him till those worse hurt were 
relieved. He sat down on the bank of a small stream 
and refused any assistance until " his turn came." 

In September he was made a major-general and 
sent to the Shenandoah Valley, the locality in which he 
was to gain much of his fame. His genius for war 
was quickly displayed and the Federal troops found 
him an ugly foe to deal with. On March 2}^, 1862, he 



192 HEROES OF THE ARMY • 

was defeated by General Shields near Winchester and 
retreated rapidly up the valley, pursued by General 
Banks. Reinforcements reaching him, he suddenly 
turned, sent Banks whirling backward, and drove him 
to the Potomac, striking in rapid succession the con- 
verging columns of Milroy, Shields, and Banks, beat- 
ing them separately and forcing them from the State. 
Then, on the approach of General Fremont with a 
strong force from the west, he moved hastily up the 
valley to Harrisonburg. Fremont overtook him at Cross 
Keys, where on the 8th of June, an indecisive battle 
was fought. In that brief campaign Jackson had 
proved himself a soldier of exceptional ability and was 
looked upon with admiration alike in South and North. 
He had cleared the valley of his foes by movements 
of the greatest brilliancy, and then deftly baffled the 
attempt to cut him off by moving upon his rear. 

In this " campaign of the valley " he had, by vigil- 
ance, sagacity, celerity of movement, secrecy, and fault- 
less tactical skill, achieved the greatest results with the 
smallest means and had made himself a terror to the 
Federal authorities. McDowell, commanding an army 
between Washington and Richmond, was held back 
from McClellan through fear of uncovering Washing- 
tion to this thunderbolt of war. Lee and Jackson took 
quick advantage of the situation. Hastening from the 
valley, where there was no foe to hold him, Jackson 
joined Lee in that series of movements and assaults 
which drove back McClellan's army through a week 
of battles and forced it to take shelter at Harrison's 
Landing, on the James River. 

The Government at Washington, losing faith in its 
generals, now called to its aid General Pope, who had 
done some good fighting in the West, and put him to 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 193 

cover Washington. Here was fresh work cut out for 
Lee and Jackson. " Stonewall" was sent against this 
force and on his way north encountered his old antag- 
onist Banks at Cedar Run and signally defeated him. 
On August 25 he passed round Pope's right flank and 
forced him to fall back from the Rappahannock. 

Pope, reinforced from McClellan's army, made a 
stand on the old battlefield of Bull Run, and here 
Jackson held him by stubborn fighting until Longstreet, 
sent by Lee, came to his aid, when the two effectively 
routed Pope, after one of the most desperate battles 
of the war. 

Richmond now was safe. McClellan's men, hastily 
recalled, had made their way with all speed to Wash- 
ington. That city was secure and Lee now made 
his celebrated invasion of Maryland, detaching Jack- 
son with his corps for an attack upon Harper's Ferry, 
then garrisoned with twelve thousand men. Jackson's 
success in this movement was remarkable. He invested 
the place, and a few days sufficed, aided by faint- 
heartedness on the part of the Union commander, to 
force a surrender of the garrison and the valuable mu- 
nitions of war, including many stands of arms and 
seventy-two guns. 

Great was the success of Jackson in this movement. 
Yet brilliant as it was, the movement was highly peril- 
ous. Lee had run a serious danger in dividing his 
army in the face of McClellan's vigorous pursuit. Be- 
fore a junction could be made McClellan had attacked 
Lee at Antietam and forced him to accept battle under 
great disadvantage. His escape from utter rout de- 
pended upon Jackson, and old Stonewall proved equal 
to the occasion. By a severe night march he reached 
the field of battle with two of his divisions on Septem- 
13 



194 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

ber 1 6 and by his presence saved the Confederate 
army from imminent peril of destruction. The stars 
had fought for Lee. A day's more detention of Jack- 
son at Harper's Ferry might have brought complete 
destruction to the Confederate army, pushed back with 
its rear on the river. But Stonewall Jackson never 
failed to be on hand when needed. With his thin 
line he faced the corps of Hooker, Mansfield, and 
Sumner, repulsing them all successively and saving the 
day. The next day Lee crossed the Potomac into 
Virginia. 

Jackson remained with Lee's army during the brief 
remainder of his career and took part in two more 
great battles. At Fredericksburg, on December 13, 
he commanded the Confederate right wing and did his 
share so well in repelling Burnside's fierce assaults 
that he was promoted to the rank of lieutenant-general. 

The last battle of this famous soldier was that of 
Chancellorsville, May i and 2, 1863. Lee's great vic- 
tory here was largely due to his able lieutenant, 
who suggested and made the movement that resulted 
in Hooker's severe defeat. Executing a flank move- 
ment on the right wing of Hooker's army, he sud- 
denly struck the flank of the eleventh Federal corps 
and drove it in utter confusion before him. As he was 
making a reconnoissance with his staff in the dusk of 
the evening, with a view of pressing the pursuit, he 
was fired on by mistake by some of his own men and 
received several wounds. One of these, in the arm, 
was so severe that amputation was necessary. An 
attack of pneumonia followed and he died May 10, 
1863. The battle was won, but at a cost no single 
victory could pay for. In the fall of Stonewall Jackson 
it was as if an army had been annihilated. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY i95 

Stonewall Jackson had few equals as a general. In 
all his career no one could accuse him of a tactical 
mistake. He was fearless, but not reckless. He had 
wonderful power over his men, who loved him and 
would fight for him as for no other. He knew when 
he could strike a telling blow and knew as well when 
it was time to hold back. He carefully planned all his 
movements and made none which he had not fully 
matured. His loss was a terrible blow to Lee, who 
felt that in Jackson he had lost his right arm. 

In his religious fervor, his serene and indomitable 
courage and his extraordinary influence over his 
soldiers, he reminds us of the great Puritan leaders 
who fought under Cromwell. On the field of battle 
he was never known to lose his self-possession or to 
be surprised by any sudden change of fortune. His 
quick eye would detect the moment to act and his keen 
judgment tell when and how the stroke should be 
made. 

As a man he was modest, upright and remarkably 
pure-minded. In conversation he was frank and firm 
in manner, looking straight at and seemingly through 
you as he talked. None of his opinions or convictions 
was languidly held, he being intensely earnest in all 
his beliefs and niles of conduct. He was strictly 
temperate in his habits. On one occasion, when wet 
and fatigued, his physician gave him some whiskey. 
He drank it with a wry face and the doctor asked him 
if it was not good whiskey. 

" Oh," said he, " it's good enough. I like liquor. 
That's why I don't drink it." 



GEORGE H. THOMAS, THE ROCK OF 
CHICKAMAUGA 

General Thomas was one of the great generals 
of the Civil War who was too modest to blow his 
own trumpet. He kept quiet and stayed behind while 
smaller men crowded to the front. He was not only 
a man of modesty, but also a man of conscience. 
After the battle of Shiloh he was given the position 
which belonged of right to Grant, but would not 
accept it, feeling that Grant had not been justly treated. 
In the same way, before the battle of Perryville he was 
put over Buell, but he declined for the same reason, 
saying that a soldier ought to have the right to fight a 
battle for which he had made preparations. Men of 
this type are rare phenomena in war or peace. 

There was thus no self-seeking in General Thomas. 
He was a true gentleman, a man who would not 
consent to rise through injustice to others. As a 
soldier there was not his superior in the army. He 
was of the slow and sure kind ; he would not strike 
until he was ready, and when he did strike something 
was sure to fall. He was deliberate in his motions and 
cautious in his character. His men called him " Old 
Reliable," " Old Pap Safety," " Old Slow-Trot," and 
also " Pop Thomas " and " Uncle George." He never 
joked or was familiar with them, yet few commanders 
in the army had more the confidence and affection of 
their men. He was not of the class of men who seek 
to shine, but of that class with whom duty stands 
before glory. 

196 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 197 

He was ever modest. After the war he could rarely 
be induced to speak of the great military movements 
in which he had taken part. One might know him 
for years and yet never learn from him that he had 
won great victories. Yet as a soldier he bore the 
highest reputation, and an able critic has said, " He 
was one of the very few commanders who never 
committed a serious military error, who never sacri- 
ficed a command, and who never lost a battle." 

Personally he was a peculiar character. He hated 
to change habits or even his clothes, and it was a 
sore trial to him to give up his old coat. In the early 
part of the war he rose rapidly in rank from colonel to 
brigadier-general, but he was long a general before he 
quit wearing his colonel's uniform. So, six months 
after he was made a major-general, he still wore the 
old brigadier coat and would have kept on wearing it 
had not one of his aides, helped by his servant, slyly 
abstracted the rusty coat and replaced it with a new 
one, with the stars suited to his rank. 

George Henry Thomas was a Virginian, born in 
Southampton County, July 31, 1816. As a boy he 
spent many years in school, but by watching workmen 
he learned how to make saddles, boots, and furniture, 
thus cultivating a useful habit of observation. He was 
twenty years old and was studying law under his uncle 
when he was offered a cadetship at West Point. This 
hit his fancy and he gave up law for the army, in which 
the remainder of his life was passed. 

Graduating in 1840, he was made a second lieu- 
tenant in the artillery service and sent to Florida, where 
war with the Seminole Indians was still going on. His 
second chance for active service came under General 
Taylor in the Mexican War. Here he fought so gal- 



198 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

lantly at Monterey and Buena Vista that the citizens 
of his native county, proud of his bravery, presented 
him with a sword. The war department gave him 
the brevet rank of captain. 

Made a major in the cavalry in 1855, Thomas was 
sent to Texas and remained there for five years, seeing 
some service against the Indians. In one skirmish 
an Indian's arrow pierced his chin and sank into his 
breast, but he pulled it out and went on fighting. He 
found life more dangerous when at home in i860 on 
leave of absence, since he was caught in a railroad 
accident, in which his spine was injured. This was 
perhaps the cause of his slow riding and deliberate 
manner of moving in the war that soon followed. 

In 1861 the secession movement in the South filled 
the land with rumors of war and the military men of 
North and South began to line up with their respective 
sections. Lee and Stonewall Jackson prepared to 
draw their swords for their native State and it was 
supposed that Thomas would do the same, especially as, 
early in 1861, he had asked for a position as instructor 
of cadets in the Lexington Military Academy, in which 
Jackson was a professor. But Major Thomas did not 
view his duties to the Union in that way, and when the 
State seceded he remained in the old army. 

His first duty was on April 21, when he helped put 
down a secession riot in Maryland. On May 5 he was 
made colonel of his regiment, the fifth cavalry, and 
took part in the fight between Stonewall Jackson and 
General Patterson at Falling Waters. In August he 
was made brigadier-general and sent to Kentucky. 
Here he soon found himself opposed to the Confederate 
General ZoUicoflfer, who had invaded Kentucky by way 
of Cumberland Gap. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 199 

It was not long before Thomas was actively at 
work against his enemy, a force sent out by him 
driving Zollicoffer's men back into the Gap. He pro- 
posed to follow up this advantage and invade east 
Tennessee, but an order from General Buell called 
him back to Lebanon, Ky. Here he organized the 
first division of the army of the Cumberland, for 
which he found work very quickly. Zollicoffer had 
crossed the Cumberland in spite of opposition and 
intrenched himself at Mill Spring. Thomas at once 
took the road against him, making a difficult march 
to a point ten miles from the Confederate works, where 
he halted to wait for some expected reinforcements. 

The over-confident Zollicoffer, thinking he had a 
good opportunity to win an easy victory, left his lines 
on January 19, 1862, drove in Thomas's pickets, and 
made an attack upon his line. But the afltair did not 
work according to his plans. The vigilant Thomas 
was ready for him, checked his advance, and made a 
brilliant charge which drove the Confederates back 
to their works. The reinforcements coming up, he 
proposed to attack these works the next day, but when 
day dawned Zollicoffer was gone. He had crossed the 
river so hastily during the night that his artillery and 
supplies were left for the victors. In this way Thomas 
won the first Union victory in Tennessee. Thanks 
came to him for it, but no promotion. 

We must go on now till October, 1862. Thomas 
had found plenty of marching but no fighting to do, 
but recently General Bragg had invaded Kentucky in 
an impetuous way that caused Buell to hasten back to 
Louisville, fearing it might be captured. The authori- 
ties at Washington were dissatisfied with this move- 
ment, which looked like giving up the State to the 



200 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

enemy, and an order was sent taking the command 
from Buell and giving it to Thomas. This the gallant 
fellow did not like. Buell had increased his army to 
one hundred thousand men and was prepared to face 
his foe, and it did not seem just to rob him of his 
chance under the situation. The generous Thomas de- 
clined the promotion and contented himself with the 
command of Buell's right wing when, on the 7th of 
October, he moved out of Louisville. On the 8th the 
battle of Perryville was fought, but the right wing was 
so placed that it took little part in that fight. It ended 
in Bragg's retreat. 

The authorities at Washington were still dissatisfied. 
Buell did not make the active pursuit they expected, so 
he was again removed. General Rosecrans being now 
ordered to replace him, an injustice to Thomas, who 
should have had the post. The two armies again came 
together near the end of the year at Murfreesboro, Ky., 
where on December 31, a battle of the utmost fierceness 
was fought. The Union right was viciously attacked 
and driven back and the left met with the same fate. 
Only the stubbornness of the centre, commanded by 
General Thomas, saved Rosecrans from a disastrous 
defeat. While his supports were retiring in confusion 
the brave fellow held the enemy at bay with calm and 
unyielding firmness, changing his front and shifting 
his position in the face of a victorious foe. 

That night a council of war was held at which it 
was decided to retire upon Nashville. Thomas went 
sound asleep during the deliberations, at the end of 
which Rosecrans wakened him, saying, " Will you 
protect our retreat?" He looked up in amazement. 
" This army can't retreat," he said, and fell asleep 
again. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 201 

It did not retreat. A new line was formed, and when 
the next day dawned the Confederates were amazed 
to find the supposed beaten army facing them in a 
fresh Hne of battle, well posted on good ground and as 
steady and firm as on the day before. Bragg hesitated 
to attack, and it was not until the second day that he 
did so. This day's battle was as fierce as the preceding 
one and, as before, Thomas was the mainstay of Rose- 
crans, continuing to baffle Bragg's attacks. A cavalry 
and infantry charge at length ended the day, Bragg 
losing so heavily that he retreated during the night of 
January 3, leaving two thousand sick and wounded 
behind. 

As yet, however, Thomas had not had a great oppor- 
tunity. One came to him at Chickamauga, where he 
saved the Union army from a ruinous defeat. For 
months after the battle of Murfreesboro the armies 
were engaged in strategic movements, Bragg in 
Chattanooga, Rosecrans operating against him. At 
length, by getting south of him and threatening to 
cut ofif his lines of supply, Rosecrans forced him to 
leave that place and hurry back through the mountain 
passes. Here, on the 19th of September, Bragg sud- 
denly turned and attacked the ill-concentrated Union 
army, taking it at a disadvantage. A terrible two 
days' battle ensued, in which Rosecrans was decisively 
beaten and his army might have been practically 
destroyed but for the indomitable Thomas. For his 
brilliant services on this occasion, he gained the 
deserved title of " the Rock of Chickamauga." 

It was largely through his stubborn defence on the 
first day that the fierce onslaughts of Bragg's veterans 
were repulsed. On the second day he saved the army 
from destruction. Reinforced by Longstreet during 



202 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

the night, Bragg hurled his brigades against the Union 
lines in the hope of piercing them and rolling them 
back. The supports of Thomas's flanks were broken 
and the corps of Crittenden and McCook routed, the 
fugitives streaming back to Chattanooga in such con- 
fusion that Rosecrans hastily telegraphed that he had 
been defeated, and made active efforts to get the dis- 
mayed troops in some posture of defence. 

But none of Thomas's men were among the fugi- 
tives. They were still fighting like lions in the field. 
Wheeling his lines within the defile of Prick's Gap, 
whose steep sides protected his flanks, and throwing 
up a hasty breastwork of logs and rails in his front, 
the man who " did not know when he was whipped " 
fought on, repelling every attempt of the foe to break 
his stubborn lines. General Garfield, chief of staff to 
Rosecrans, hearing the roar of battle, halted in his 
flight and rode back to see what it meant. His surprise 
was extreme. " Never," he said, " will I forget my 
amazement and admiration when I beheld that grand 
officer holding his own, with defeat on every side." 

Nightfall found him still in his position, the unyield- 
ing rock that held back the tide of victory. During the 
night he led his men back to Rossville and the next 
evening marched them in perfect order into Chatta- 
nooga, to the astonishment of the broken troops. 

Such was the exploit to which Thomas owed his 
greatest fame. A month later Rosecrans was removed 
from his command and Thomas appointed in his place. 
The task before him was a terrible one. Hemmed in 
by Confederate troops, the amiy on quarter rations, the 
horses almost starving, ammunition nearly exhausted, 
the troops half clad, the army mules dragging scant 
supplies along a difficult path, dying by thousands on 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 203 

the way, Bragg daily bombarding the city from the 
heights around it, the case looked desperate. It needed 
a Thomas to hold firm in such a situation. Grant, on 
his way thither, telegraphed from Nashville, " Hold 
Chattanooga at all hazards." " We will hold the town 
until we starve," was the grim reply. 

In the story of General Grant we have told what 
followed and how Thomas aided in the defeat of 
Bragg. When Grant was called to Virginia in 1864 
and Sherman put in command of the division of the 
Mississippi, Thomas became one of his chief lieu- 
tenants and fought with all his old vim in the series 
of battles that took place in the march from Chatta- 
nooga to Atlanta. Then once more he was given a 
separate command. General Hood, after vainly trying 
the effect of hard fighting on Sherman's ranks, re- 
sorted to strategy. He moved from Atlanta and led 
his troops to the north, his purpose being to cut the 
Union lines of communication and force Sherman to 
retreat. He did not know the man he had to deal 
with. Sherman sent Thomas with about thirty thou- 
sand men to Nashville to deal with Hood and himself 
prepared for his grand march to the sea. 

The story of how Thomas now dealt with Hood 
shows clearly the kind of man he was. During the 
battle at Chickamauga, when Steadman reported to 
him and asked him how the battle was going, " I can't 
tell," he replied ; " the scoundrels are fighting without 
any system." He was not the man to fight without 
system. He did nothing without knowing just what 
he was about. Whatever anyone might think or say, 
he would not move until he was ready. This was 
especially demonstrated at Nashville. Stationing him- 
self at that point, he sent Schofield out to impede 



204 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Hood's advance, with instructions to fall back on 
Franklin if hard pressed. Schofield did so, and when 
Hood attacked him at Franklin, drove him back with 
a loss of six thousand men. During the night Schofield 
fell back to Nashville and the same day reinforcements 
reached Thomas under General A. J. Smith. 

Meanwhile his superiors had been growing im- 
patient. Why did he not strike Hood? Grant, Sher- 
man, and Secretary Stanton were alike anxious for 
him to act, but he told them all that he was not 
ready and refused. Grant, out of patience, called him 
" slow." Sherman, in a letter to Grant, spoke of his 
" provoking delay." Stanton wrote to Grant that 
" this looks like the McClellan and Rosecrans policy of 
do nothing and let the enemy raid the country." But 
all their demands were wasted on Thomas, who gave 
them to understand that he would fight when the 
proper time came, and not before. An order was soon 
issued for his removal, but it was not sent, fortunately 
for Thomas and the country. 

On December 15, the time came and all was ready. 
He issued from his works, struck Hood a terrible 
blow, rolled up his lines from left to right, and drove 
him back eight miles, where he took a new position 
at a point he had previously selected. Thomas's men 
spent the night in front of this new line and the next 
day attacked again, carrying Hood's works, driving 
out his troops, and following them until darkness 
stopped the pursuit. Hood acknowledged an utter 
defeat, afterwards saying, " Our line was broken at 
all points, and, for the first and only time, I beheld a 
Confederate army abandon the field in confusion." 

They were given no opportunity to rally. Thomas 
followed them with the alertness of a Napoleon and 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 205 

kept up the pursirt without cessation until the 29th, 
by which time Hood had crossed the Tennessee at the 
head of " a disorganized and disheartened rabble of 
half-armed barefooted men." The army was not alone 
defeated ; it was dispersed and destroyed. It never came 
together again ; the men straggled to their homes ; 
nobody was left to fight in that quarter of the land. Its 
guns, its stores, eight thousand of its men, four of its 
generals and more than two hundred and fifty officers 
remained in Thomas's hands. No one called him slow 
after that. 

Hard fighting in the West was at an end. Some 
raiding bands were sent out, and one of these captured 
Jefferson Davis after his flight from Richmond. 
Thomas remained in command in the Tennessee dis- 
trict till 1867, when he was put in command over 
Georgia, Florida and Alabama. The rank of lieuten- 
ant-general was now offered him, but he declined it, 
saying that it came too late as a reward for his services 
during the war, and that since then he had done nothing 
to deserve it. After May, 1869, he commanded the mili- 
tary division of the Pacific, and died at San Francisco, 
March 26, 1870. 

General Thomas was a man of spotless character, a 
hater of ostentation, reserved, self-poised, steadfast. 
He was deliberate in all he did, and believed in care- 
fully maturing his plans before putting them into 
effect. He was courteous and dignified in manner and 
his heavy form and slowness of motion fitted well with 
his character. " No man in the army," says Colonel 
McClure, " more perfectly completed the circle of sol- 
dier and gentleman. He was one of the most lovable 
characters I have ever known, but it required exhaus- 
tive ingenuity to induce him to speak about military 
matHiers in which he had taken a prominent part." . 



GEORGE G. MEADE, THE VICTOR AT 
GETTYSBURG 

On three great days, from the ist to the 3d of July, 
1863, the fate of the Confederacy was practically 
decided. Then, on the field of Gettysburg, the cul- 
minating battle of the struggle for the Union was 
fought and Lee's veteran army was hurled back in 
defeat. Until then the star of the Confederacy, so 
far as Virginia was concerned, had been steadily 
rising. There its decline towards its setting began, 
and all honor belongs to the man to whom this 
victory was due, George G. Meade, the commander 
of the army of the Potomac during that momentous 
campaign. This was the great event in General 
Meade's life, the one supreme opportunity to achieve 
fame. Previously he had played a subordinate part. 
Afterwards, though in command, he did not add to 
his brilliant record. Later on he was thrown in the 
shade by the great figure of Grant. Gettysburg was 
his one opening for glory and he rose to the level of 
the occasion. 

George Gordon Meade was born at Cadiz, Spain, 
on the final day of the year 181 5. His father was at 
that time a merchant and the United States consul in 
that city. The father returned to the United States 
in 18 16, and when his son was of proper age had him 
entered in the West Point Military Academy, where 
he graduated in 1835. 

From that time forward Meade's career lay in the 
army. He served for a time in Florida against the 
206 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 207 

Seminole Indians and was one of those heroes of the 
Civil V\'ar who fought in Mexico, but he was mainly 
occupied in survey duty and in the construction of 
lighthouses until the Civil War, doing good work, no 
doubt, but remaining subordinate. He was promoted 
captain of engineers in 1856 and did not reach the 
rank of major in the regular army until 1862, after a 
year's service in the Civil War. 

He held, however, a higher rank in the volunteer 
army, being made brigadier-general in August, 1861. 
As such he was under McClellan in the Peninsular 
campaign and served in the Seven Days' battles, fight- 
ing at Gaines's Mill and on July i at Malvern Hill, 
where he was twice struck by bullets and severely 
wounded. He recovered, however, in time to take part 
in the hard-fought battle of Antietam, where he com- 
manded a division. He took an active part in the sub- 
sequent battles of Fredericksburg under Burnside, and 
Chancellorsville under Hooker, commanding the Union 
left in the latter engagement. His division fought well 
in both battles, but shared in the defeat of the general 
army. 

General Lee's signal success in these two great 
battles led to the most ambitious move in his career. 
Now, as after the second battle of Bull Run, he looked 
about for a hopeful field of operations in which he 
might win success during the temporary discourage- 
ment and disorganization of the Union army. In both 
cases Washington was secure against a direct attack. 
In the first instance he had invaded Maryland in the 
hope of gaining some marked advantage thereby. In 
the second he decided on an invasion of Pennsylvania, 
with the hope that, in the event of his defeating the 
Union army, the .great cities of Philadelphia, Batlti- 



208 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

more, and Washington might be taken by his victorious 
troops. 

Lee began his great movement of invasion secretly 
and shrewdly, and his advance troops were making 
their way up the Shenandoah Valley for a week before 
Hooker discovered what was in the wind. Then the 
Union army was put in the quickest possible motion, 
and during much of the month of June, 1863, the two 
powerful armies were racing each other up the two 
sides of the Blue Ridge Mountains, Hooker diligently 
seeking to protect Washington while making every 
effort to unmask the intentions of the foe. Meanwhile, 
as the news of these movements became divulged, a 
general alarm spread through the North. Forts were 
hastily built to protect Philadelphia and other threat- 
ened points, brigades from home guards were recruited 
and sent to the front, money was sent from the Phila- 
delphia banks to places of safety, the drill rooms were 
crowded with volunteers, and so great was the alarm 
that " even the clergy assembled and to a man offered 
to drop both preaching and the pen and to take up 
either musket or spade." 

In the midst of this march, after the Union army 
had crossed the Potomac and was pressing up through 
Maryland, a critical event took place. A force of 
eleven thousand men lay at Harper's Ferry, and Gen- 
eral Hooker asked the Government to remove the 
public stores from that place and add these men, use- 
less there, to his army. This General Halleck, com- 
mander-in-chief, refused to do, and Hooker at once 
resigned. General Meade was immediately appointed 
in his place. 

This change of commanders, in front of a powerful 
enemy and cm the eve of a great battle, was a perilous 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 209 

act, calculated to demoralize the best disciplined 
troops. With the veterans of the army Hooker was 
a favorite, a man whom they knew and loved, while 
they knew much less of Meade, who had commanded 
only a division of the army. And the change looked 
like a personal one directed against General Hooker, 
for the troops at Harper's Ferry, refused to him, were 
at once placed under Meade's control. In fact, the 
emergency was so great, that the new general was 
given absolute powers, and set free from interference 
of any kind. 

It was on the 28th of June, 1863, that General Meade 
came into this position of responsibility. He lost 
not a moment in preparing to act. The army at this 
time had advanced as far as Frederick, Maryland, and 
Lee, whose advance had reached the Susquehanna and 
was threatening Philadelphia, ordered his advance 
troops back when he learned that the Union army was 
in force so near at hand. He prepared to concentrate 
his army in the vicinity of Gettysburg. 

Meanwhile Meade had put his whole army in motion 
and had ordered the troops to leave Harper's Ferry 
and occupy Frederick. Seeking an advantageous posi- 
tion for his army in the terrible struggle that was 
impending, he selected the line of Big Pipe Creek, 
southeast of Gettysburg, with the hills of Westminster 
in the rear. This would have formed an excellent 
line of defence, but circumstances prevented its use. 
General Reynolds had been ordered to push forward 
towards Gettysburg, so as to mask the formation of 
the battle-line on Pipe Creek. Here, on the ist of July, 
he unexpectedly came upon the van of the Confeder- 
ates and soon found himself engaged in battle with a 
superior force. In the fight that ensued, Reynolds was 
14 



2IO HEROES OF THE ARMY 

killed and his men were driven back, occupying the 
hilly ground called Cemetery Ridge. Meade, when he 
heard of what had taken place and of the strength of 
the new position, ordered the whole army to march 
with all haste to Gettysburg. 

Both armies were now pressing forward with all 
rapidity, and during July 2 they continued to arrive 
and take position on the new battle-line. Meade, 
when he reached the ground, saw the strength of the 
position which Howard had secured and determined to 
stand on the defence, forcing on Lee the perilous 
alternative of attack. It was not until late in the after- 
noon of that day that the battle began and it continued 
along the whole line until night had fallen, not ending 
until ten o'clock at night. The struggle was one of 
frightful energy; never had those two veteran hosts 
fought with more desperate courage, and a large per- 
centage of the two armies were killed or wounded. 
When the day's deadly work ended the Confederates 
had driven back the advanced Union line, but the 
whole length of Cemetery Ridge was still firmly held. 
This Meade determined to hold during the next day, 
while Lee, encouraged by his partial success, determined 
to continue the attack. Such was the position of the 
two armies when the day dawned on the 3d of July. 

That day was the turning point in the war. General 
Lee saw how much depended on the day's work and 
determined upon a desperate eflFort for victory. The 
battle began with a frightful cannonade, in which, for 
two hours of the afternoon, more than two hundred 
cannon poured out their fiery hail. Then, when the 
Union cannon ceased firing and seemed as if silenced, 
a great line of infantry, led by General Pickett and 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 211 

fifteen thousand strong, was launched in desperate 
charge upon the centre of Meade's line. 

It was the greatest charge in the war. It was appa- 
rently a hopeless one, for Meade awaited it with a 
hundred cannon and the flower of his army. As the 
line advanced it was torn and rent by shot and shell. 
From the front and both flanks an awful storm of 
bullets fell on the long column of attack. Men fell 
dead and wounded in multitudes, hardly a handful of 
the mighty force reached the Union lines, and great 
numbers of them were forced to throw down their arms 
and surrender, scarcely a fourth of them reaching their 
own lines again. The mighty charge had utterly failed. 

General Lee had made his supreme effort and had 
lost. Meade, the victor, was hailed as the nation's hero. 
He had lost in the battle over twenty-three thousand 
men, but he had won. Lee had lost some thirty thou- 
sand, fourteen thousand of them being prisoners, and 
he had lost the battle as well. On the following day, 
July 4, 1863, he left the field and began his retreat. It 
was the greatest 4th of July since the signing of the 
Declaration of Independence, for on that same day 
Vicksburg was surrendered to General Grant. 

General Meade did not follow up his victory in a way 
to satisfy the impatient people of the North. He was 
severely blamed by newspaper critics for delaying his 
pursuit until Lee had crossed the Potomac, but was re- 
warded for his great victory by promotion to brigadier- 
general in the regular army — he had been only major 
before. It was the i8th of July before he finally crossed 
the Potomac, and the army, which had before pursued 
Lee northwardly, now pursued him to the south. Of this 
nothing came. During the remainder of the year there 
were marches and countermarches, each of the vigilant 



212 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

commanders seeking to obtain some advantage over 
the other. Meade more than once advanced on the 
enemy, seeking to take him at a disadvantage, the last 
movement being on November 27-30. He found Lee so 
strongly posted on the rugged banks of Mine Run that 
an attack seemed suicidal. The army was withdrawn 
and went into winter-quarters between the Rapidan 
and the Rappahannock and the year's work was at 
an end. Meade had failed to add to the laurels he had 
gathered at Gettysburg. 

General Meade was thus the hero of one battle. In 
the next spring General Grant took command and 
Meade was lost sight of in the brilliant work of his 
superior. He was left in command, all orders to the 
army came through him, and as Grant has said he was 
" the right man in the right place." But everyone 
knows that Grant was the soul of all the events 
that followed and Meade stood as his lieutenant, to 
carry his plans into effect. 

In August, 1864, he was promoted to major-general, 
and continued to command the army of the Potomac, 
under General Grant's directing hand, until the end 
of the war. The war over, he was made in 1867 com- 
mander of the third military district, comprising 
Georgia, Florida, and Alabama. There were no other 
notable events in his life, and he died at Philadelphia, 
November 6, 1872. An equestrian statue of him 
stands, in a somewhat secluded situation, in Fairmount 
Park. 



JOSEPH E. JOHNSTON, COMMANDER OF 
THE LAST CONFEDERATE ARMY 

The Confederate general with whom we are now 
concerned was a victim of circumstances, and was 
prevented by fate and official thick-headedness from 
playing the distinguished part in the Civil War that 
might otherwise have been his. A severe wound 
received before Richmond took from him the command 
of the army and turned it over to General Lee. Later, 
while still weak from his wound, he was sent to oppose 
Grant and Sherman before Vicksburg with a much 
smaller force. Finally, while pursuing a Fabian policy 
before Sherman on the road to Atlanta, he was re- 
moved from command in the midst of his efforts by 
the cabinet officials at Richmond and a man put in his 
place who had not half his ability. If Johnston had 
been left alone Sherman probably would never have 
made his " march to the sea." 

Joseph Eggleston Johnston was born in Prince 
Edward County, Virginia, February 3, 1807, ^^^ 
mother being a niece of Patrick Henry, the famous 
orator of the Revolution. He was a cadet at West 
Point in the same class with Robert E. Lee, graduated 
in 1829 with that famous soldier, and, like him, entered 
the engineering branch of the service. In this line of 
duty he was kept busy at map-making until the war 
with the Seminole Indians of Florida broke out, in 
which he took part as a lieutenant, being eventually 
rewarded for his services by the rank of captain. 

After he had done fighting with the Indians, Johns- 

213 



214 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

ton went back to his old employment of map-making 
and surveying, taking part in 1843 i" the survey of 
the boundary line between the United States and 
Canada, and afterwards in the work of surveying the 
sea-coasts of the country. 

His quiet labors over maps and with surveying 
instruments were again broken into in 1846, when 
hostile relations with Mexico called our armies once 
more into the field. Johnston took part in the war 
that followed as a captain of topographical or map- 
making engineers in General Scott's army, but his time 
seems to have been devoted more to fighting than to 
office work, he taking an active part in the various bat- 
tles of the campaign, and receiving two wounds in the 
engagement at Cerro Gordo. It may be said here that 
during his years of fighting Johnston received no fewer 
than ten wounds, a fact which goes to show that he did 
not, like so many generals, keep safely in the rear 
while the bullets were flying. Few of the leaders 
in the service succeeded in stopping as many bullets 
as he. 

All we need to say further of his Mexican service 
is that his skill and courage were so marked as to 
bring him distinction and promotion, he being gradu- 
ally raised in rank until he was made colonel. In i860 
he was appointed quartermaster-general of the army, 
with the rank of brigadier-general. During the years 
that followed the Mexican war he had been engaged 
in his old engineering duties, surveys and river im- 
provements occupying him until he was given the work 
of quartermaster-general. This was shortly followed 
by the outbreak of the Civil War, when Johnston, like 
nearly all the Virginia officers of the army, sent in his 
resignation and offered his services to his State. In 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 215 

the true Southern spirit of State-rights partisanship, 
the State was to him the nation. 

He began his work in the war as brigadier-general 
in command of the Confederate army of the Shenan- 
doah. As such he was opposed in May, 1861, at 
Harper's Ferry by General Patterson, who had been 
sent there with a numerous Union command. Being 
not strong enough to hold the Ferry, he did his utmost 
to destroy the canal and railway by blowing up the 
clififs and hurling large masses of stone upon these 
works. Stonewall Jackson was one of his subordinates 
and saw his first active service in the Shenandoah 
Valley in the sharp little fight at Falling Waters that 
quickly followed the Harper's Ferry affair. 

But Johnston's and Jackson's first notable service 
came in July, when Beauregard was facing McDowell 
at Bull Run and sent hasty word for aid from the 
army of the Shenandoah. Johnston was then in face 
of Patterson, whose force had now been much weak- 
ened, troops being taken from him for the defence of 
Washington. Johnston adroitly eluded him, marched 
a considerable part of his force in all haste to 
the field where the first important battle of the war 
was then in progress and the Confederate forces were 
in peril, and by his timely reinforcement helped Beau- 
regard to drive back the Union forces in a defeat that 
soon became a panic. Johnston was superior in rank to 
Beauregard, but he waived his right of command and 
permitted that officer to finish the fight he had so well 
begun. 

During the months that followed Johnston remained 
on the field of Manassas, threatening Washington and 
holding the Union troops there for its defence. After 
the experience of Bull Run no inclination was felt to 



2i6 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

interfere with him. In March, 1862, Union movements 
caused him to retire beyond the Rapidan, and when 
McClellan began his movement to the peninsula to 
make a sort of back-door attack on Richmond, Johns- 
ton hastened there to oppose him. He was now full 
general, with command of the army of Virginia, and 
the safety of the Confederate capital depended on 
him and his men. 

He succeeded in holding McClellan for a month at 
Yorktown, but was forced out of Williamsburg on 
May 5 and retreated to a position covering Richmond. 
McClellan's army followed rapidly, and on reaching 
the Chickahominy a portion of it crossed this small 
and easily forded river. Hardly had they done so 
when the conditions changed. Heavy rains poured 
down, the stream was suddenly swollen with the 
rushing waters, and the Union army found itself cut 
in twain. A happy accident for his cause it seemed 
to Johnston, who was falling back on Richmond. 
He immediately turned in his tracks, marched on 
the isolated Union brigades, and charged them with 
vigor. Only stubborn courage saved them from a 
disastrous defeat. 

The supposed happy chance proved in the end a 
most unhappy one for the Confederate commander. 
At about the hour of sunset, when his men were 
severely pressing their enemies, who were tenaciously 
clinging to their position, Johnston was struck by a 
fragment of a shell, and received so serious a wound 
that he had to be carried from the field. During the 
night and early in the morning the Unionists were 
reinforced, the stream having shrunk into its old chan- 
nel, and the next day's fight left them masters of 
the field. Thus ended the battle of Fair Oaks, or 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 217 

Seven Pines, as it has been variously named. It was a 
desperate affray, with heavy loss, each side losing 
about seven thousand men. 

This battle proved very unfortunate for General 
Johnston. It removed him from command at a critical 
stage in the central field of operations. General Lee tak- 
ing his place and winning the honors which might have 
come to him. He remained disabled for several months, 
it being November before he was able to assume a new 
command, that over Tennessee, Alabama, and Missis- 
sippi. As late as April, 1863, he reported that he was 
still unfit for active service in the field. 

Very active service was before him. Grant, tired 
of being held at bay north of Vicksburg, was now 
making his memorable swing round that city to the 
soil of Mississippi south of the stronghold. The plan 
he had in view was first to deal with the forces in the 
open field and then take the city by siege or assault. 

Johnston's army was a small one, quite unfit to deal 
with Grant's heavy forces, but he marched to the relief 
of the beleaguered stronghold, reaching Jackson on 
May 13. He tried to hold this place against heavier 
forces under Sherman, but was unable to do so, and 
during the month that followed he sought in vain to 
aid Pemberton, in command at Vicksburg. As Pem- 
berton held on to the place against Johnston's advice 
until Grant had him closed tightly in, the case soon 
became hopeless. 

On May 29 Johnston wrote to Pemberton, " I am 
too weak to save Vicksburg," and this proved to be 
the case. He gave Grant what trouble he could, but 
was not able to stand before the quick and heavy blows 
dealt him, and on July 4 the campaign ended in the fall 
of the strong Confederate city and the surrender of 



2i8 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Pemberton and all his men. If Johnston's advice had 
been taken the latter disaster would have been avoided, 
but President Davis had other views and Pemberton 
was induced to hold on until escape was impossible. 

We take up the fortunes of General Johnston again 
six months later, in December, 1863, when he was 
put in command of Bragg's army after the disastrous 
defeat of the latter before Chattanooga. In the follow- 
ing May Sherman began his famous advance towards 
Atlanta, Johnston opposing him with an army of about 
fifty-five thousand men, then strongly fortified at Dal- 
ton, Georgia. 

It was an interesting game of war that followed. 
Johnston's army was much smaller than Sherman's, 
but the country the latter had to march through was 
mountainous and full of deep gullies, woods, and 
ravines, its difficulties going far to equalize the strength 
of the forces engaged. Sherman found it easier to 
flank than to attack the strong position at Dalton, and 
Johnston was quickly obliged to fall back to Reseca, 
where Sherman attacked him. Here he showed a 
bold front, but finding himself outmatched he retreated 
during the night and made his next stand in a strong 
mountain pass, where Sherman again outflanked him. 

Thus fighting and flanking, the two armies kept at it 
until the vicinity of Atlanta was reached, Johnston 
steadily on the defensive, as Lee was in the North. 
Yet by this time one-fourth of Johnston's army was 
gone. He had done splendidly with his inferior force, 
saving it wherever he could, for he knew that the 
Confederacy was then too poor in able-bodied men to 
replace its losses, but fighting wherever he thought a 
chance for victory existed. Atlanta, which he had now 
reached, was already well fortified, but he stt his 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 219 

men busily at work in an effort to make it an impreg- 
nable stronghold, hoping to beat off his more powerful 
foe. In the midst of this work he was suddenly de- 
prived of his command. 

His continual retreat before Sherman had deeply 
displeased the authorities at Richmond, especially 
President Davis, who did not approve of his cautious 
policy and evidently expected more from him than 
was possible. Experts tell us that Johnston had man- 
aged the campaign with the greatest skill and for the 
best interests of his cause, and that his defensive stand 
at Atlanta was the best course that remained for 
him under the circumstances ; but this the govern- 
ment at Richmond did not believe, and the more dash- 
ing, but less skilful and prudent soldier, General Hood, 
was put in his place. 

Davis wanted battles, and Hood was the man to 
accommodate him. Johnston was removed on the i8th 
of July, and Hood fought fierce battles on the 22d 
and the 28th, being defeated with heavy loss on both 
occasions. He fought other battles with the same 
result, and finally, being forced out of Atlanta, moved 
to the north with the purpose of cutting Sherman's 
lines of supply. What came of this movement may 
be read in our story of General Thomas. All we need 
say here is that the policy of " swapping horses in 
crossing a stream " did not prove a good one in that 
instance. 

In February, 1865, the Richmond government, in 
despair at Sherman's seemingly irresistible advance, 
turned to General Johnston again and asked him to 
take command of the army collecting in South Carolina 
to oppose this advance. It was a forlorn hope he was 
asked to lead. To check Sherman now, with the 



2 20 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

resources at his command, was next to impossible. 
Johnston, however, patriotically took the command 
offered him. 

By gathering up Hardee's men from Charleston, 
Beauregard's from Columbia, and Hampton's cavalry, 
he got together a respectable force, about forty thou- 
sand strong, and for a time put Sherman in consider- 
able jeopardy. A stand was made by Hardee at 
Averasboro, North Carolina, on March i6, and a stub- 
born little battle took place, ending in Hardee's being 
pushed out of his intrenchments. 

Sherman meanwhile was on the march to Goldsboro 
and the result of this engagement gave him a perilous 
sense of security. He ordered his corps commanders 
to march in the easiest manner and by the nearest 
roads to Goldsboro, as a result of which his army be- 
came separated and spread out over a distance of ten 
or twelve miles. He had no idea that Johnston was 
marching upon him swiftly and stealthily during the 
night and next day was hovering near, waiting for a 
favorable opportunity to strike. 

The blow came on the morning of the 19th, falling 
heavily on Slocum's wing of the army, which suddenly 
found itself in the face of Johnston's whole host. It 
was a genuine surprise and only stubborn fighting 
enabled the troops to hold their own until help could 
reach them. The battle continued all day, the seasoned 
veterans on both sides fighting with fury. Only the 
rapid hurrying up of the scattered divisions saved 
Sherman from a disastrous defeat. As he says, his 
men received " six distinct assaults by the combined 
forces of Hoke, Hardee, and Cheatham, under the 
immediate command of General Johnston himself, 
without giving an inch of ground, and doing good 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 221 

execution on the enemy's ranks, especially with our 
artillery, the enemy having- little or none." 

Thus ended the battle of Bentonville, both sides 
holding their own ground and neither able to claim a 
victory. It was a memorable contest, brilliantly 
fought, and its whole inception and progress showed 
the ability of Johnston as a soldier. The manoeuvres 
of the next two days caused him to withdraw, con- 
vinced that his chance of beating Sherman had van- 
ished. It was the last battle in that section of the 
Confederacy. Not many days passed before the news 
of Lee's surrender reached the armies, and on the 24th 
of April Johnston, knowing that the cause of the Con- 
federacy was at an end and that further fighting would 
be mere murder, surrendered to Sherman, receiving 
the same terms that had been granted to General Lee. 

The remainder of General Johnston's career was a 
quiet one, with no incident specially calling for men- 
tion. He engaged after the war in the railroad and 
insurance business, and in 1877 was elected to Congress 
from Richmond. President Cleveland afterward ap- 
pointed him United States commissioner of railroads. 
He made his home at Savannah, Georgia, and was 
active in endeavoring to improve the industries of the 
South. Death came to end his career on the 21st of 
March, 1891. 



PHILIP H. SHERIDAN, THE HERO OF 
THE RIDE FROM WINCHESTER 

Among the many able soldiers whom the Civil War 
produced there was none more admired than Sheridan, 
the hard rider and resistless fighter. He well deserved 
the title of the " Whirlwind of the Shenandoah Val- 
ley." Grant says of him : " As a soldier there is no 
man living greater than Sheridan. He belongs to the 
very first class of captains, not only of our army, but of 
the world. I rank him with Napoleon and Frederick 
and the great commanders of history." This is high 
praise, but Sheridan did much to deserve it. 

Philip Henry Sheridan was of Irish descent, his 
father coming from Ireland three years before, on the 
6th of March, 183 1, Philip was born in the Ohio town 
of Somerset. The family was poor, and the boy had to 
work in the village stores, getting what little education 
he could. He was of the true Irish spirit, fond alike of 
a frolic or a fight, making friends of everybody, a born 
soldier, delighting in organizing the village boys into 
companies and drilling them severely. History he 
loved to read, especially the stories of wars. No doubt 
he took an intense interest in the battles of the Mexican 
war, and shortly afterwards, in 1848, he was fortunate 
in getting admission to West Point. Here his old 
spirit broke out. he had quarrels, he broke rules, and 
succeeded in getting suspended for a year, not gradu- 
ating till 1853. 

As a soldier he spent years in the far West, where he 
succeeded in seeing some fighting against the Indians, 

222 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 223 

a party of whom attacked the blockhouse at the Cas- 
cades of the Columbia. With the dragoons and a few 
companies of the Ninth Infantry he drove them off. He 
won compliments for his gallantry in this action and 
was put in command over the Indian reservation. Such 
was his position in 1861, when the Civil War began. 

Sheridan was called to the East, where every soldier 
was now needed, a lieutenant still, but modestly hoping 
that he " might get a captaincy out of the thing." This 
rank was given him on June 18, he being put in com- 
mand of a company in the thirteenth infantry, of which 
William T. Sherman was the colonel. He was next 
appointed quartermaster and commissary on the staff 
of General Curtis, then in Missouri, but in this post 
did not give satisfaction, and was sent to General 
Halleck, then advancing on Corinth, after the battle 
of Shiloh. Halleck had served in California and knew 
something of Sheridan, and on May 25, 1862, had him 
appointed colonel of the second Michigan cavalry. 

Sheridan had now gained a position in which he was 
able to show what was in him. His fine fighting at 
Brownville, Mississippi, on July i, won him promotion 
to brigadier-general of volunteers, and on October 8 
he commanded a division in the battle of Perryville, 
where he distinguished himself alike for daring and 
ability in handling troops. It was, however, in the 
desperate two days' battle at Stone River that he had 
the first opportunity to make his powers known. Here 
his division held the key of the position for three 
hours, his three brigade commanders and nearly half 
his men falling, yet he fighting on with a stubborn 
resolution that went far to win the day. For his 
gallantry in this fight he was made a major-general of 
volunteers. 



224 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

He continued to make his mark during the following 
year, taking part in various combats, the greatest of 
which was the disastrous battle of Chickamauga, Sep- 
tember 19 and 20. Here, through some mistake or 
some misunderstanding of orders, Sheridan's division 
became separated from the rest of the army, and had 
to fight alone against superior forces. Its resistance 
was vigorous, but in the end it was driven from 
the field. 

There followed a series of brilliant events around 
Chattanooga, where Grant took command and in late 
November launched his whole army against that of 
General Bragg, strongly intrenched on Lookout Moun- 
tain and Missionary Ridge. In the movement against 
the latter Sheridan's division formed the centre of the 
column and in the final day's fight, that of the 25th, 
did work reflecting the highest honor on itself and its 
gallant leader. 

Moving from the timber in which his lines had been 
formed, the men charged at double-quick across an 
open plain against the first Confederate line of rifle-pits, 
at the foot of the ridge. The work was so rapid and im- 
pulsie that the men were in the pits before any efifective 
defence could be made and drove the defenders pell- 
mell from their works, killing some, capturing many. 

To take this line was all that Grant had intended 
and a messenger was on the way with instructions to 
tiiat effect. But the victorious troops and their impul- 
sive leader did not wait for orders. Already they 
were rushing up the five-hundred-feet hill, and in a 
few minutes had stormed and captured the second line 
of works, half-way up the slope. The daring fellows 
were not to be stopped by orders or by the storm of 
bullets that met them as they rushed with wild cheers 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 225 

on upward, and we may be sure that Sheridan was not 
far behind the front. 

Soon the crest of the hill was gained and they met 
its defenders in a desperate hand to hand conflict 
with a force and fury that nothing could withstand. 
The Confederates were forced from their guns and 
driven down the opposite slope, their pace accelerated 
by a shower of stones from Sheridan's men, who had 
no time to reload. Before the last of the charging col- 
umn had reached the crest Bragg's men, utterly demor- 
alized by their sudden defeat, were in hurried retreat, 
with their large wagon train, along the valley below. 

Sheridan's conduct in this brilliant victory was fully 
appreciated by Grant. He saw that in the young Irish 
leader he had a man who could fight to win, and in 
the following year, when he was made the nation's 
commander-in-chief, Sheridan was one of the men 
he asked for. When, in March, 1864, he took com- 
mand of the army of the Potomac, he told President 
Lincoln that he wanted the very best leader in the 
army. " How would Sheridan do ?" asked Halleck, 
who was present. " The very man I want," said 
Grant. Sheridan was at once ordered north, and on 
April 4 he took command of the cavalry corps of the 
army of the Potomac, which he set himself at once to 
bring into the best fighting trim. 

Work was soon cut out for him. On May 8, after 
having helped effectively in the battle of the Wilder- 
ness, Sheridan was ordered to break loose from the 
army, attack the cavalry of the enemy, cut his line of 
communications and supplies, and sweep around Lee's 
lines to Butler's position on the James River. This 
was work to Sheridan's heart and he accomplished it 
with his usual vim and promptitude. Dashing towards 
15 



226 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Richmond, he destroyed L^e's stores at Beaver Dam, 
recaptured four hundred Union prisoners on their 
way to Libby prison, destroyed miles of railroad and 
telegraph, and on the nth met Stuart at Yellow 
Tavern in the hottest cavalry fight of the war. Stuart, 
Lee's ablest cavalry commander, fell on the field and 
his men were driven back, while Sheridan crossed 
the Chickahominy and made a dash on the defences of 
Richmond. After having four cavalry fights in all, he 
went into camp on the James, where he gave his men 
a three days' rest. For more than two weeks Grant was 
saved from all annoyances by the cavalry of the enemy. 

We cannot name all the combats in which Sheridan 
took part. His one failure was when he was sent to 
the Shenandoah Valley on June 6 to cut the Virginia 
Central Railroad and relieve General Hunter, then in a 
critical position far up the valley. This movement 
did not succeed and Hunter was soon after forced into 
a retreat to West Virginia, leaving the valley unde- 
fended. Lee took quick advantage of this state of 
affairs by despatching General Early on his famous 
movement, in which Maryland was invaded and Wash- 
ington put in serious danger of capture. On July 1 1 
Early was within view of the capital, which a little 
more energy might have put into his hands. But the 
rapid gathering of troops obliged him to retreat and he 
was soon in the valley again, which was dominated by 
his victorious troops. 

Early's threatening attitude led Grant to send Sheri- 
dan to face him, a new division, named the Middle 
Military Division, being formed and put under Sheri- 
dan, who was given an army of thirty thousand men, 
eight thousand of whom were cavalry. Hunter's 
troops from West Virginia subsequently joined it, 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 227 

making a total force of forty-five thousand men, with 
twenty-two batteries of artillery. This was the force 
that afterwards became famous as the Army of the 
Shenandoah. 

Sheridan took his time. He was feeling his way 
and getting acquainted with the situation. There were 
marching and countermarching and fights here and 
there of minor importance, but a month or more 
passed with no decisive action and the positions of the 
two armies remained with little change. Each of the 
generals had felt the other and found him too strong 
to attack. The country grew impatient. People were 
eager to see something done. Grant himself did not 
understand the reasons for delay and visited Sheridan, 
intending to propose a plan of operations. But when 
he saw the state of afifairs and learned that Sheridan 
was only biding his time, waiting till he could take his 
adversary at a disadvantage, the shrewd commander 
concluded that his able subordinate did not need 
advice but was quite able to take care of himself. The 
time came in September. Early had been strongly 
posted on Fisher's Hill, two miles south of Stras- 
burg. On September 14 General Anderson's force 
left him, under orders to join General Lee. Early 
further weakened his army by sending a large detach- 
ment to Martinsburg, his men being stretched out in a 
long line through Bunker Hill and Winchester. 

This unwise weakening of his force gave Sheridan 
the opportunity he was awaiting. He took quick advan- 
tage of it, marched upon the Confederate army, flanked 
Early right and left, and, after a day's bloody conflict, 
defeated him so completely that, in Sheridan's telling 
phrase, he was sent " whirling through Winchester " 
in defeat. Sheridan's loss in men was much the 



228 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

heavier, but he had won an important battle, taken 
two thousand prisoners, and captured five guns and 
nine battle-flags. Grant made up his mind, on hearing 
of that day's work, that it was not necessary " to visit 
General Sheridan before giving him orders." Early 
had accepted defeat in time to save his train and 
stores and fell back to the position he had left on 
Fisher's Hill. Sheridan had been severely punished, 
his total losses being nearly five thousand men, but on 
the day after the fight he was in pursuit again, and 
lost no time in striking Early in his strong post. 
General Crook was sent forward and, all day long, 
moved towards and along Little North Mountain, 
under cover of the woods. In this way he gained 
unseen the Confederates' flank and rear. Just before 
sunset he rushed upon them suddenly, and was over 
their intrenchments before they could recover from 
their surprise. The other divisions joined in with the 
charge. " Go on ; don't stop ; go on ! " shouted Sheri- 
dan and his staff. Early's whole line broke and fled 
from the trenches and their stronghold was carried, 
with six guns and a thousand prisoners. 

Early fled, with Sheridan hot upon his heels, the 
pursuit not ceasing until he had been driven out of the 
valley and into one of the gaps of the Blue Ridge, 
where reinforcements came to meet him. Sheridan's 
success was phenomenal. *' Go on," said Grant, " and 
your work will cause the fall of Richmond." The 
whole North was jubilant. Early's men were thor- 
oughly disheartened. The mob at Richmond, dis- 
gusted at his defeat, labelled the fresh cannon sent him, 
" To General Sheridan ; Care of General Early." 

Sheridan, his foe having got beyond reach, obeyed 
the orders sent him by devastating the valley so that 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 229 

Early could not make it a source of supplies. It was 
made so bare that a crow could hardly have found pick- 
ings. He destroyed more than two thousand barns and 
numerous mills filled with wheat, drove oflF four 
thousand head of cattle and killed for his troops three 
thousand sheep. He continued to fall back, still 
destroying-, finally going into camp on the line of 
Cedar Creek. Here, a month later, came the most 
famous event in Sheridan's career. 

He had been absent for some days on business at 
Washington, and reached Winchester on his return 
on the morning of October 19. He had hardly entered 
when an officer reported that he heard sounds of 
artillery, and Sheridan mounted his horse and rode 
through the town. Here the sound of distant guns 
was distinct and he rode forward with some anxiety 
for a mile or more, when he met fugitives hastening 
towards the town. On questioning them Sheridan 
learned what had taken place. Early, greatly strength- 
ened, had attacked the army before daybreak and 
under cover of a dense fog, breaking its ranks, driving 
it back for miles, and capturing guns and prisoners 
in numbers. 

Sheridan heard this with grimly closed lips and 
galloped on at breakneck speed, with twenty mounted 
men in his train. As he met the thickening line of 
stragglers he swung his hat in the air and called to 
them, cheerily, " Face the other way, boys, face the 
other way! We're going to lick them out of their 
boots !" 

The mere sight of Sheridan was like a corps of 
fresh troops to the men. They faced about, taking up 
his cry. On reaching the broken army, more than 
eleven miles from Winchester, he was hailed with a 



230 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

tempest of joy. His presence put new life in the 
broken troops. They obeyed him readily, quickly 
reformed their ranks, and formed a compact line of 
battle just as the enemy came yelling forward in 
another charge. To their surprise they were met with 
sturdy resistance and their dismay was complete when 
they learned that Sheridan was on the ground. 

At 4 o'clock he ordered a general advance. Under 
the influence of his enthusiasm the late disheartened 
troops pushed forward with resistless force. The 
Confederates, their order broken while rifling the cap- 
tured camp, gave way on all sides, their repulse soon 
becoming a complete rout. The twenty-four lost guns 
were recaptured and as many more taken. Ambu- 
lances, caissons, battle-flags, etc., were among the spoil, 
and the pursuit was kept up till Early was driven 
many miles away. 

Such was the famous incident that formed the 
climax of Sheridan's career and which, as " Sheridan's 
Ride," has been celebrated in art, song and story. It 
was the end of Early's domination of the valley. 
Sheridan met him once more, on February 27, 1865, 
at Waynesboro, and crushed him so completely that he 
fled to Richmond, leaving Sheridan without a foe in 
his front. 

At Richmond matters were now nearing an end. 
Sheridan joined Grant's army on March 19, and was 
sent to ride around the enemy and get on his rear. On 
April I he fought the last great battle of the war, 
routing Pickett and Johnson at Five Forks, taking 
their works and capturing several thousand prisoners. 
This closed the game for Lee. The next day he aban- 
doned Richmond and began his final retreat. Sheridan 
was in an instant in pursuit and on the 9th Lee found 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 231 

him in his front, drawn up in a battle-line. Before he 
could charge the white flag was displayed and the war 
in Virginia was at an end. 

The remainder of Sheridan's career must be briefly 
dealt with. After the surrender of Lee and Johnston 
he was sent to Texas, where Kirby Smith was keeping 
up a show of resistance. When Smith surrendered 
Sheridan was given command of the military division 
of the Gulf, with instructions to watch the war between 
the Mexicans and the emperor whom Napoleon HI. 
had imposed upon them. The show of hostility he 
made had much to do with bringing that disgraceful 
affair to an end. Napoleon had no fancy for putting 
his troops against Sheridan's veterans. 

Obeying Congress, instead of President Johnson, 
during the reconstruction troubles at New Orleans, he 
was removed and sent to Leavenworth, where he put 
down with a heavy hand the Indian troubles of that 
time. When Grant was inaugurated President in 1869 
Sheridan was rewarded for his services with the title 
of lieutenant-general, and in 1883 he succeeded Sher- 
man in the rank of general of the army. He had 
married in 1874 and he died August 5, 1888, his body 
being interred in the National Cemetery at Charleston. 

We have given Grant's estimate of Sheridan as a 
soldier. No man in the army was more daring and 
self-reliant than he, and none could inspire his men 
with a greater enthusiasm. Yet he was as cautious as 
he was enterprising, always looking out for emergen- 
cies and never fighting without providing for a possible 
retreat. Throughout his career, and especially in the 
Shenandoah Valley, he showed that he was a soldier 
of the highest grade. 



JAMES E B. STUART, THE RUPERT OF 
THE SOUTH 

A HERO of romance to the South was its dashing and 
brilliant cavalry leader, J. E. B. Stuart, the thunder- 
bolt of Lee's army, the foremost cavalry knight in 
either army until Sheridan came north to contest with 
him the palm for dash and daring. The novelty, bold- 
ness, and rapidity of his movements, their energy and 
headlong courage, with the success that generally at- 
tended them, brought him hosts of admirers, v/ho re- 
garded him as their Prince Rupert of the South. His 
story is one illumined with dashing enterprises and 
romantic episodes, ended by death in action in the 
height of his career. 

James Ewell Brown Stuart, born in Patrick County, 
Virginia, February 6, 1833, was the son and grandson 
of soldiers, his grandfather having served in the Revo- 
lution, his father in the War of 1812. He followed in 
their steps, studying the military art at West Point, 
where he graduated in 1854. The following years of 
his life were active ones, first against the Apaches in 
Texas as second lieutenant of the regiment of mounted 
riflemen in that State, next in Kansas during the 
border troubles there, and afterwards in Indian war- 
fare, during which he was in a fight with the Chey- 
ennes on Solomon River. He went as an aide with 
Robert E. Lee to Harper's Ferry to put down the 
John Brown insurrection, identifying its leader as 
" Ossawatomie Brown," whom he had known in Kan- 
sas. He was in Virginia on leave of absence when that 

332 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 233 

State seceded from the Union, and at once resigned 
from the army and joined the Confederate forces. 

Such, briefly stated, was Stuart's career prior to the 
Civil War, in which he was to distinguish himself as a 
great cavalry soldier. He had been first lieutenant in 
the United States army, but was now appointed lieu- 
tenant-colonel, in July was made colonel, and in Sep- 
tember, in recognition of his excellent services, was 
commissioned brigadier-general. These services were 
the following: When General Joe Johnston marched 
from Winchester to the field of Bull Run, Stuart 
screened his movement from General Patterson by 
active demonstrations in his front. Then speeding to 
the battle-field, he was of much aid to Stonewall Jack- 
son and helped greatly in winning victory for the Con- 
federate forces. 

His most brilliant exploit in the early era of the war 
was in June, 1862, when McClellan's army lay before 
Richmond and Lee was planning his memorable attack 
upon it. Stuart was directed to make a raid around 
the rear of the Union army, doing all the damage 
he could and locating the position of its left wing. 
This was a commission in his true vein, a chance for 
one of those bold, free, adventurous rides, full of the 
spice of danger, in which his soul delighted. 

He sallied forth from Richmond on the I2th at the 
head of fifteen hundred horsemen and four pieces of 
horse artillery, and soon was riding with free rein 
northward and westward, cutting loose from all com- 
munications and dashing into a field of danger. At 
Hanover Old Church he met and dispersed two squad- 
rons of Union cavalry, and swept on to Garlick's Land- 
ing, on the Pamunky River, where he seized and burned 
fourteen wagons and two schooners laden with forage. 



234 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

A considerable number of prisoners, with mules and 
horses, were here seized, and a large amount of stores 
was destroyed at Tunstall's station, near the White 
House, McClellan's base of supplies. 

This daring raid lasted three days, during which 
Stuart rode entirely around the army of the Potomac, 
and then crossed the Chickahominy on a ruined bridge 
and leisurely returned up the James River to Rich- 
mond, with McClellan's forces on one side and the 
Union gunboats on the other. He had lost only one 
man and brought back highly useful information. This 
was the first of those spectacular cavalry raids of 
which there were many later in the war. His brilliant 
exploit, and his services in the Seven Days' fight that 
ensued, brought Stuart, though not yet thirty years 
old, the rank of major-general. 

Stuart's second opportvmity to distinguish himself 
came in the northward march of Jackson and Long- 
street against General John Pope, and the terrible 
second Bull Run battle. After a sharp cavalry fight at 
Brandy Station on August 20, in which he drove Bay- 
ard's horsemen across the Rappahannock, he crossed 
that stream on the 22d, rode round Pope's rear to 
Cattell Station, and captured there his despatch-book 
and baggage and several officers of his staff. A por- 
tion of the stores there were fired, but the heavy rain 
saved them from serious damage. Fifteen hundred 
infantry and five companies of cavalry were guarding 
these stores and the disgrace of the raid was considered 
more serious than the damage done by it. 

On the 26th he led in a raid with more important 
results, the expedition comprising a strong force of 
cavalry and infantry. A midnight attack was made 
on the post at Manassas Junction, which was taken by 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 235 

surprise, and seven hundred prisoners captured. The 
spoils included quantities of railroad property and a 
vast amount of stores, of various kinds. Stonewall 
Jackson followed him and took possession of Manas- 
sas, and on evacuating it shortly afterwards he de- 
stroyed all the stores that could not be taken off. 

Meanwhile Stuart was busy in other work, guid- 
ing Longstreet northward to a junction with Jackson, 
who for a day had been fighting furiously with Pope. 
This reinforcement brought complete victory to the 
Confederates, Pope being driven from the field and 
forced to fall back on Washington. In this great 
battle, in which the Union army suffered one of its 
most serious repulses, Stuart rendered most effective 
aid and added greatly to his reputation as a skilled 
and daring cavalry leader. In Lee's subsequent in- 
vasion of Maryland he was actively engaged at South 
Mountain and Antietam, and this was followed in 
early October by the most adventurous and daring 
raid in his career, the invasion of Pennsylvania and 
capture of Chambersburg. 

After the battle of Antietam, Lee retreated into 
Virginia and McClellan lay lingering on the Potomac 
in his usual deliberate way. Both armies were enjoy- 
ing a season of rest and recuperation, which no doubt 
both needed. In the fine days of October the cavalry 
of Lee's army lay near Charlestown, about ten miles 
south of Harper's Ferry, Stuart's head-quarters being 
in a fine old mansion known as " the Bower," whose 
hospitable proprietor was making life very pleasant 
to the war-wearied officers of the staff. 

But this agreeable ease was not to " Jeb " Stuart's 
taste. He felt that something should be doing to 
demonstrate that the chevaliers of Virginia had not 



236 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

gone to sleep, and during the 8th of October there 
was a stir about head-quarters which indicated that 
active service was in the wind. On the evening of that 
day the officers enjoyed themselves highly at " the 
Bower," the entertainment ending with a serenade in 
which the banjo and fiddle took chief part, while not 
a note of war broke in on their pleasure. 

On the morning of the 9th there was a decided 
change. The sound of the bugle broke cheerily on the 
morning air and the roads were soon filled with 
troopers, eighteen hundred of them, picked men all, 
the best mounted and most trustworthy in the corps. 
They had been called out for a work that would 
demand alertness, activity, and daring, and only the 
best men in the squadrons were wanted. 

A battery of four guns accompanied the expedition, 
which set out in high spirit, its purpose kept secret, but 
the men feeling that when " Jeb " Stuart led lively 
times were to be looked for. Darkness had fallen 
when they reached the Potomac and here they biv- 
ouacked for the night, crossing early the next morning. 
A fog covered the valley as they rode forward, finding 
no foes, and crossing the narrow width of Mary- 
land and entering Pennsylvania without a shot 
being fired. 

Nothing was disturbed in Maryland, but horses were 
seized on both sides of the line of march in Pennsylva- 
nia, and on the evening of the loth the bold raiders 
rode into Chambersburg, the goal of the expedition, 
without an enemy being seen. That night was spent in 
the town, and the next morning they set out at dawn 
on the road towards Gettysburg, after gathering what 
spoil they could easily carry, paroling the sick soldiers 
in the hospital, and setting fire to the ordnance store- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 237 

house, well filled with military supplies, the railway 
buildings, and several trains of loaded cars. 

So far all had gone well, but the troopers had a day 
of imminent peril before them. Rain had succeeded 
the fair weather and was now falling heavily, threaten- 
ing to make the Potomac impassable, and though they 
had met no foes in their advance, they knew that 
many would await them in their retreat. The alarm 
had spread far and wide, the telegraph had called the 
Federal cavalry out in all directions, and the daring 
eighteen hundred would need to ride fast and furious 
on their way back to Virginia. 

Yet fortune favored them. General Pleasanton was 
patrolling the roads to cut them off, but was led astray 
by false information, and when he halted for fresh 
orders, after a fifty miles' ride, Stuart passed by unseen 
within four miles. Yet as the raiders approached 
the Potomac the peril rapidly increased. Midnight 
brought Pleasanton word of their movements and he 
was quickly on their trail, while infantry and cavalry 
came closing in from other quarters. Stuart reached 
Hyattstown, in the vicinity of the Potomac, at day- 
break on the 1 2th, after marching sixty-five miles in 
twenty hours. 

Turning abruptly to the west, the raiders rode 
through a large piece of woodland that concealed their 
movements. The nearest available crossing was 
White's Ford, and for this they rode at full speed. As 
they approached they were disconcerted to see a large 
body of infantry in position on a steep bluff very 
near the ford. If these could not be driven away all 
was lost. There was but one thing to do, to put a 
bold face on the matter. Colonel W. H. F. Lee, who 
commanded the advance, called on the infantry officer 



238 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

to surrender, saying that Stuart's whole force was 
before him and that resistance was useless. After a 
short wait for a reply, he opened on them with his 
guns and to his surprise and relief the infantry aban- 
doned their position and retreated. 

A loud Confederate cheer followed them. No shot 
was fired to hinder their march. On to the ford rode 
the weary troopers and passed over without opposition^ 
though their foes were closing in upon them from all 
sides, and in a few minutes more their rear guard 
would have been cut off. Within twenty-seven hours 
Stuart had ridden eighty miles, from Chambersburg to 
White's Ford, and crossed with his artillery and capt- 
ured horses, his only loss being one man wounded 
and two stragglers captured. The value of the prop- 
erty destroyed was estimated at two hundred and fifty 
thousand dollars and twelve hundred horses were 
carried off, though many of their own had to be aban- 
doned. Thus ended Stuart's most famous raid. 

Stuart was kept busy in the subsequent movements 
of the army and rendered good service at Chancellors- 
ville, his cavalry covering Stonewall Jackson's flank 
movement. When Jackson fell wounded the command 
of his corps fell for the time upon Stuart, who extri- 
cated it from the critical position it had reached in the 
darkness and renewed the attack the next day. 

During the succeeding Gettysburg campaign he had 
an opportunity to invade Pennsylvania again, this time 
under very different auspices. During the northward 
march he guarded the flanks of Lee's columns and 
had several sharp brushes with the Federal cavalry. 
On the passage of the Potomac he obtained Lee's 
permission to repeat his favorite movement of riding 
round the enemy's rear, and accordingly crossed the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 239 

river between the Union army and Washington, riding 
up into Pennsylvania to the west of Meade's army. It 
proved an ill-advised movement. Stuart was forced 
to make a wide detour and did not reach the battle- 
field at Gettysburg until the evening of the second 
day's fight. Thus Lee was deprived of his cavalry 
at an important crisis in his career and lost all the 
advantage which he might have obtained from Stuart's 
presence. All the latter was able to do was to take part 
in the closing struggle and to cover the rear of Lee's 
retreating army. 

In the months that followed Stuart had many en- 
counters with the Federal cavalry, the most striking 
being during Lee's movement towards Washington in 
October, when in one of his movements he found 
himself hemmed in between two Federal corps and in a 
very perilous position. His first impulse was to aban- 
don his guns and wagons and attempt a speedy flight 
under cover of the darkness, but he finally decided 
upon another plan. 

Hiding his men in one of those dense thickets of 
small pine saplings which cover old fields in Virginia, 
he sent out three men dressed in Federal uniforms, 
who, by mingling with the Union columns, managed to 
escape and reach Lee, whom they told of Stuart's 
plight. Help was at once sent, and under cover of the 
confusion caused by a cannonade of the Union lines 
the bold cavalry leader managed to break through and 
escape. 

Stuart met his Waterloo in 1864, when he first 
encountered Sheridan, the most famous cavalry leader 
on the Union side. When Grant emerged from the Wil- 
derness after his desperate fight in its depths, he sent 
out Sheridan with a large cavalry force to raid in Lee's 



240 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

rear and cut his communications. Crossing the Po, 
the Ta, and the North Anna, and destroying miles of 
railroad and large quantities of stores, he rode on, 
still destroying and hotly pursued by Stuart, until 
Yellow Tavern, a few miles north of Richmond, was 
reached. 

Here Stuart, who had swiftly ridden to his front, 
had concentrated his forces, and at this point the 
two greatest cavalry leaders of the war met. Sheridan 
at once attacked and a fiercely contested fight began, 
in the heat of which the gallant Stuart fell from his 
horse with a mortal wound. He was taken to Rich- 
mond but died the next day, May 12, 1864. 

Thus died in harness the most brilliant Confederate 
cavalry leader of the war, a daring, skilled, and capable 
soldier, who on horseback was of almost as much 
service to Lee as Jackson on foot. The two died in 
battle and the fall of each was a serious loss to the 
Confederate cause, since men like them it was next to 
impossible to replace. 



WILLIAM S. ROSECRANS, THE VICTOR 
OF STONE RIVER 

William Stark Rosecrans, the son of a soldier 
of the War of 1812, was born at Kingston, Ohio, on the 
6th of December, 1819, and when of proper age was 
entered by his father at West Point to learn the mili- 
tary art. Here he graduated in 1842, entered the engi- 
neer corps, and for some years was assistant professor 
of engineering in the Military Academy. In 1847 ^^ 
was put in charge of the repairs at Fort Adams, near 
Newport, R. L, and in 1854 resigned, becoming a civil 
engineer at Cincinnati and engaging in coal mining 
and in the manufacture of kerosene. An explosion 
of this material injured him so severely that for eigh- 
teen months he was confined to his bed. Thus passed 
forty-one years of his life. 

When Lincoln's call for volunteers to put down 
secession was issued in April, 1861, Rosecrans was 
among the first to oflfer his services to the Government, 
as a volunteer aide to General McClellan. In June he 
was appointed chief engineer of the State of Ohio and 
immediately afterwards took command of the twenty- 
third Ohio volunteers. His field services began in 
July under McClellan in Western Virginia, where, on 
July II, he fought and won the battle of Rich 
Mountain. 

Colonel John Pegram, of the Confederate army, 
with about fifteen hundred men, was strongly in- 
trenched in Rich Mountain Gap, of the Laurel Hill 
Range, about four miles from Beverly. His forces 
16 241 



242 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

commanded the road over the mountains to Staunton, 
the chief highway of southern Virginia, and he boasted 
that his position could not be turned, his flanks being 
protected by precipitous hills. He boasted too loudly, 
as it proved, he being quickly driven out by a force of 
three Indiana and one Ohio regiments, with a troop 
of cavalry, sent against him under Colonel Rosecrans. 

In light marching order, and guided by a young 
man named Hart, son of the owner of the mountain 
farm where Pegram lay encamped, the expedition 
started at three o'clock in the morning, making its way 
through a heavy rain-storm along a rough, slippery 
and pathless route for a distance of about eight miles. 
A wide detour was made, and at noon they reached a 
point a mile in Pegram's rear and on the summit of 
a ridge high above the camp. 

Here, to their surprise and dismay, they were sud- 
denly met with a heavy volley of cannon and musket 
shots and found themselves in face of a well-manned 
breastwork of earth and logs. Pegram had captured 
one of McClellan's couriers and learned of the expe- 
dition, for which he had quickly prepared. Rosecrans 
had no cannon, but his men were eager to fight, and 
the Indianians were ordered to lie down on the grass 
while the Ohio men advanced as skirmishers. After 
a considerable waste of ammunition fired over the 
heads of the lying men, Pegram's men leaped from 
their works and charged with yells across the road. 
In an instant the Indianians were on their feet and met 
them with the bayonet, charging so furiously that the 
Confederates quickly broke and fled down the moun- 
tain slopes to Pegram's camp. 

This minor afifair, in which Rosecrans commanded, 
was one of the earliest engagements of the war. He 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 243 

had about eighteen hundred men, double the force of 
the ambushed enemy, and met with a loss of about 
fifty, while Pegram lost in killed, wounded and prison- 
ers more than four hundred. 

Yet the position of Rosecrans was perilous, sepa- 
rated from the main body as he was. Fortunately 
McClellan, who had heard the cannonading, advanced 
to Pegram's front and planted his cannon for an 
assault on the camp. That night Pegram fled. He 
was pursued and cut off from assistance and in the 
end, finding no way of escape and being for two 
days without food, he surrendered with what re- 
mained of his force. 

This engagement, while of no great moment in itself, 
is presented here as the opening event in the career of 
Rosecrans as a leader of men. It was considered of 
sufficient importance to bring him the commission 
of brigadier-general in the United States volunteer 
service. He continued with McClellan until the latter 
was called to the general command of the army after 
the battle of Bull Run, when Rosecrans was left in 
command in Western Virginia. 

He was soon faced by a notable opponent. General 
Lee being put in command of the scattered forces in 
that quarter. General Floyd, recently secretary of 
war under President Buchanan, who had now taken 
up arms for the Confederacy, was also in the field, in a 
strong position on the Gauley River. Lee and Floyd 
proposed to drive the Federal troops from the mountain 
region and perhaps follow up their victory by the 
capture of Wheeling and the invasion of western Penn- 
sylvania. This plan, as the event showed, did not work. 

Rosecrans had now gathered a force of nearly ten 
thousand men, and early in September marched against 



244 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Floyd, leaving General Reynolds in the Cheat Moun- 
tain region to watch and oppose Lee. Rarely has an 
army followed a wilder road than that which Rosecrans 
and his army were obliged to traverse. His route lay 
along some of the wildest of the mountain tracks, over 
the western spurs of the Alleghanies. Now the men 
passed through deep ravines and narrow defiles, now 
climbed steep hill-sides, now followed slippery and 
winding paths among beetling crags. The Gauley 
Mountain Range was especially rugged. Its summit 
was reached at noon of September 9, and the weary 
troops looked down upon a magnificent panorama of 
wooded heights and valleys, through one of which 
curved the waters of Gauley River. On a bald emi- 
nence just north of this stream lay Floyd's camp, the 
river curving so that his flanks rested on the stream. 

It was a strong position, but Rosecrans did not hesi- 
tate to attack and during the greater part of the day 
the roar of combat echoed among the hills. Night fell 
before the battle ended, and when the next morning 
dawned Floyd's army had disappeared. It had crossed 
the Gauley in the dark over a bridge of logs, which 
broke down behind the troops, while a large amount of 
arms and camp equipage was left in the works. Thus 
ended the battle of the Carnifex Ferry, with little loss 
in men on either side, but with victory for the Union 
arms. 

Meanwhile Reynolds had held his own against Lee. 
Later on, the latter was recalled to Richmond to 
engage in engineering works in South Carolina, Rose- 
crans now having only Floyd to deal with. On 
November 12 he gave that doughty civilian general 
his final defeat, putting him to flight and chasing him 
so hotly that he did not stop until fifty miles from the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 245 

field. Floyd soon after resigned from the army to 
enter upon duties for which he was better fitted. 
Shortly afterwards the campaign in Western Virginia 
ended and Rosecrans was withdrawn for service in a 
larger field. 

In April, 1862, he joined General Buell's army in 
Tennessee and took part with it in the siege of Corinth, 
where he commanded a division. After General Pope 
was called to Virginia to command the army before 
Washington, where he bore the burden of defeat on 
the old Bull Run field, Rosecrans replaced him at the 
head of his former army. It was known as the Army 
of the Mississippi, its head-quarters being at Corinth. 
General Grant was now the superior officer in that 
region. 

During September Sterling Price, a Confederate 
general, captured luka, a Mississippi village where a 
large amount of Federal stores had been gathered. 
Grant at once sent two columns against him, one under 
General Rosecrans, to attack his flank and rear, the 
other under General Ord, to strike him in front. As 
it happened, Ord did not appear in time to take part 
in the battle, which was fought by Rosecrans with the 
nine thousand troops under his command. Without 
waiting for his associate, Rosecrans made a sharp 
attack in the afternoon of September 19, a severe battle 
succeeding in which the Confederates were pushed back 
upon the town. Nightfall closed the contest and 
when Ord appeared the next morning he found Rose- 
crans in possession of the place. Price had fled 
during the night, and though sharply pursued he had 
gained start enough to enable him to escape. 

In early October Rosecrans was back at Corinth, 
which he was busily fortifying, with twenty thousand 



246 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

men under his command. Price and Van Dorn had 
combined their forces and were advancing on the 
town, threatening an attack. This came on the 3d and 
continued throughout the day, the Confederates fight- 
ing fiercely and gaining many advantages. Their 
success was so great that Van Dorn sent a triumphant 
despatch to Richmond, presaging victory, and that 
night his men rested on their arms, secure of conquest 
in the morning. 

But the next day told a different tale. The Con- 
federate veterans fought as courageously as before, 
even penetrating into the town and capturing the 
head-quarters of Rosecrans. But they were driven 
back, their ranks were swept with shot and shell, and 
before noon their hopes of victory were turned into 
certainty of defeat. With a wild shout of " Charge " 
the Federals poured over the parapets, rushed upon 
Van Dorn's men in a desperate hand to hand fight, and 
soon sent them flying in confusion to the shelter of 
the forest. 

This ended the battle. Rosecrans gave his men a rest 
till next morning and then set out in pursuit, following 
and pushing the broken columns of the enemy for forty 
miles, while the cavalry kept on their track for sixty 
miles. Rosecrans was in strong hopes of capturing or 
destroying the whole fugitive army and even cap- 
turing Vicksburg. Grant did not agree with him, 
perhaps fearing that too extended an advance might 
prove dangerous, and the victor reluctantly sounded the 
recall. A few days after this striking victory, while the 
country was ringing with his praises, Rosecrans was 
relieved from his command and ordered to report at 
Cincinnati. 

This was the result of events that had taken place in 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 247 

Kentucky. The Confederate General Bragg had in- 
vaded that State and threatened Louisville, to which 
General Buell had hastened for its defence. On the 
withdrawal of Bragg he was followed by Buell, and 
their forces met in the battle of Perryville. This ended 
in the retreat of Bragg, who, however, was not severely 
pressed by the victor. The result of the whole cam- 
paign, indeed, was so unsatisfactory to the Government 
that Buell was removed from his command and Rose- 
crans ordered to succeed him. The Army of the Ohio, 
as it had been called, w^as now renamed the Army of 
the Cumberland. 

Rosecrans found his new army in a sad condition. 
Marches, conflicts and misfortunes had wasted and 
demoralized it, leaving it with " its spirit broken, its 
confidence destroyed, its discipline relaxed, its courage 
weakened, and its hopes shattered." One-third of the 
number had gone, ten thousand of them being in 
hospitals, its cavalry was weak, and it was with great 
difficulty that its channel of supplies could be kept 
open, the Confederate cavalry being very active. 
Instead of following Bragg in his retreat, Rosecrans 
found it necessary to reorganize the army and to pro- 
tect Nashville from danger, and winter set in before 
the men were in condition for eflfective service. 

Meanwhile General Bragg, finding that he was not 
pursued, had halted and encamped at Murfreesboro, 
on the Stone River, about thirty miles southeast of 
Nashville. Having no idea that Rosecrans would 
undertake a winter campaign, he sent away a large 
portion of his cavalry, partly to annoy Grant, partly to 
try and break the railroad by which his antagonist 
obtained supplies from Louisville. Aware of this 
weakening of the enemy, Rosecrans thought that the 



248 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

opportunity was too good to let slip, and at once put 
his army in motion. 

On Christmas Day, 1862, the army lay in camp at 
Nashville. The following day found it on the march, 
streaming southward by all the roads leading to Mur- 
freesboro. By evening of the 27th it was stretched out 
in a line more than three miles long, facing Bragg's 
forces on Stone River. Here the two armies lay till the 
night of the 30th, both prepared for battle. Rosecrans 
proposed to attack early the next day and seek to cut 
through the Confederate centre, but Bragg was too 
quick for him, making an attack in force on his right 
wing at sunrise. 

Severe and desperate fighting followed. The assault 
of the Confederates proved irresistible. Union bri- 
gades were driven back in confusion, batteries were 
taken, and by eleven o'clock the Union right was com- 
pletely broken up and the Confederate cavalry were in 
Rosecrans's rear. It seemed as if the day was lost. 
General Thomas, who commanded the centre, was 
exposed to a flank attack and obliged to fall back to a 
new position. Then the left wing was furiously as- 
saulted and driven back, the only check to a complete 
victory for Bragg being the finn stand of Thomas and 
of Hazen's brigade of the left wing. 

Such was the position at nightfall, Hazen alone of 
the whole Union army holding his original ground. 
Bragg seemed justified in claiming a victory. What, 
then, was his surprise the next morning to see his 
enemy standing confidently in order of battle on advan- 
tageous ground. The stubbornness of Thomas and 
Hazen had prevented a rout and a new line faced the 
Confederate forces, so strongly posted that on New- 
Year's Day only skirmishing was attempted, the ex- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 249 

hausted armies regaining their strength for the next 
day's battle. 

This began early on the 2d and for hours was as 
furious as before. The final result was due to a very 
heavy artillery fire, fifty-eight guns being massed and 
pouring their annihilating fire on the Confederate 
ranks. This was followed by a brilliant cavalry charge, 
which broke down all opposition. " In forty minutes," 
says Rosecrans, " the Confederates lost two thousand 
men and their entire line fell back, leaving four hun- 
dred captive." Bragg had enough. He held his ground 
during the next day, but in the night he retreated, 
leaving two thousand sick and wounded in the hands 
of the victors. 

Rosecrans had won a great victory, but he followed 
it by months of exasperating inaction. The winter 
passed away, spring came and went, yet he still lay at 
Murfreesboro, getting ready for a new campaign, but 
with annoying slowness. The people of the North 
grew impatient, the authorities at Washington were 
equally impatient, frequent orders and remonstrances 
came from the war department, but it was the end of 
June before the dilatory leader consented to move. 
His movements then were very deliberate. July 
and August passed away and it was not until Sep- 
tember 4 that he crossed the Tennessee, ready to deal 
with the large Confederate force which had gathered 
at Chattanooga. 

The method now adopted by Rosecrans seemed a 
judicious one. Instead of attacking the strongly forti- 
fied position held by Bragg, he tried a flanking policy, 
threatening the railroads below Chattanooga over 
which Bragg received his supplies. The result was 
that the Confederate general hastily abandoned that 



250 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

place and the Federals took it without opposition. In 
the days that followed Rosecrans scattered his forces 
widely and perilously in the pursuit of what he took 
to be a fleeing enemy, and discovered his mistake 
barely in time to concentrate his men in Chickamauga 
Valley. He had learned that Bragg was not fleeing 
in force before him and that Longstreet was bringing 
strong reinforcements from Virginia. 

Battle was imminent, and on the 19th of September 
the blow fell, the conflict opening in an attack by 
Rosecrans on the enemy's right wing. All that day the 
battle raged and night fell with neither side victorious, 
though the Confederates had won several advantages. 
Late that night Longstreet arrived with his veterans 
from Richmond and the next day he poured his men 
into a gap left inadvertently in the Union centre, cut- 
ting the army in two and rolling both halves back in 
disorder and confusion. All seemed lost, and Rose- 
crans galloped in haste to Chattanooga to secure his 
trains and bridges and telegraphed to Washington 
that the Union army had been defeated. 

The greater part of it really had been defeated, 
but one man, George H. Thomas, the " Rock of 
Chickamauga," saved the situation. AH day long he 
held his post, repelling every charge and retarding 
Bragg's whole army. Not until night fell did he 
deliberately fall back, and when he reached Chatta- 
nooga it was in a firm and orderly march. We have 
told elsewhere how this place was held and Bragg 
was ultimately defeated. All we need say here is that 
on October 16 Rosecrans was removed from his com- 
mand and Thomas appointed to succeed him. 

The military career of General Rosecrans was near 
its end. Until now he had played an important part 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 251 

in the war, but he had been tried in a great com- 
mand and found wanting, and he was shelved in 
Missouri, where all he had to do was to repel an 
invasion by his old antagonist, Sterling Price. He 
resigned from the army, March 28, 1867, with the 
brevet rank of major-general. During the next year 
he was for some months United States minister to 
Mexico, but was afterwards Democratic candidate for 
governor both in California and in Ohio. He was 
elected to Congress in 1881, and in 1885 was made 
register of the treasury. He died in March, 1898. 

The character and career of Rosecrans are held by 
military critics to have borne a marked resemblance to 
that of McClellan. He was a strategist of high order, 
could draft excellent plans for a campaign, but lacked 
the force to carry them through vigorously, and by his 
procrastination lost the benefit promised by his suc- 
cesses, — a statement which is held to apply to both 
these commanders. 



NATHAN B. FORREST, THE DASHING 
RAIDER OF TENNESSEE 

The Civil War was marked by the exploits of several 
famous cavalry leaders on the Confederate side, chief 
among them being Stuart, the hard rider of Virginia, 
and Forrest, the daring raider of the West and South, 
some of whose exploits have the brilliancy of those of 
Marion of old. One of his doings excited the admira- 
tion of General Lord Wolseley, who said that it " read 
like a romance," and the same may be said of some 
others of his dashing deeds. An account of his career, 
therefore, properly belongs here. 

Nathan Bedford Forrest was born in Bedford 
County, Tennessee, July 13, 1821. At thirteen he went 
to Mississippi with his parents, and here, after working 
on and managing a farm, he engaged in business at 
Hernando. He removed to Memphis, Tennessee, at 
twenty-one and became there a dealer in land and 
slaves. In 1859 ^^ engaged in the cotton business in 
Coahoma County, Mississippi, where he acquired con- 
siderable wealth. 

Such is a brief statement of General Forrest's un- 
eventful career up to his fortieth year, in 1861, when 
the Civil War broke out and the opportunity for fame 
first came to him. The secession movement was not 
to his liking. He thought the South was making a 
mistake, and when his own State joined in it he entered 
the army reluctantly. But once in he quickly showed 
that he proposed to fight for his cause with all the vim 
he possessed. 
252 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 253 

He raised a cavalry regiment shortly after the war 
began, was made lieutenant-colonel in October, 1861, 
and was present at Fort Donelson when Grant de- 
scended on that devoted stronghold with soldiers and 
ships. Forrest seems to have been among those who 
saw that the place was doomed and that it was the part 
of wisdom to leave it a free man rather than to wait 
for captivity. At any rate he and his men escaped 
before the hour of surrender came and we hear of him 
next at Nashville, which he reached in February, 1862, 
shortly after the fall of Donelson. 

He was a cavalry leader in the battle of Shiloh, and 
for some months after that battle he and his fellow- 
raider, Morgan, kept things lively in that area of the 
war, Morgan raiding Kentucky with vim and boldness, 
while Forrest paid similar attention to Tennessee. He 
was now a brigadier-general, in command of the 
second brigade of cavalry, and as such succeeded 
in spreading consternation throughout his field of 
operations. 

On the morning of July 13 he appeared suddenly 
before Murfreesboro at the head of three thousand men 
and made so vigorous an attack on the smaller Federal 
forces there that they were defeated and made prison- 
ers. Valuable stores fell into his hands and he 
decamped for other operations. His bold attack on a 
place so near Nashville roused a sentiment of lively 
alarm in that city. The work on the fortifications was 
pushed and every effort made to prepare for an attack. 
There was good reason for it, for Forrest's rough 
riders came more than once within sight of the 
city, and for a whole month it was threatened by 
cavalry raiders. 

These movements had a deeper purpose than that 



254 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

of mere annoyance of the Federal garrisons. They 
were preliminary to a formidable invasion, that of 
General Bragg and his army, who were about to make 
a dash for the Ohio, driving back Buell and carrying 
the war into the enemy's territory. In the active opera- 
tions that attended Bragg's advance and subsequent 
retreat, ended by his signal defeat at Stone River, 
Forrest was not at rest, and he was especially active 
in the interval before this battle. 

He had been detached, with three thousand five 
hundred cavalry, to operate in western Tennessee upon 
the lines of communication between Grant and Rose- 
crans and between both these and their base of supplies 
at Louisville, and for a fortnight he rode at will 
through that region, burning bridges, tearing up rail- 
roads, threatening fortified places, and capturing small 
military posts. Crossing the Tennessee at Clifton on 
December 13, he rode toward and menaced Jackson, 
then swept northward, tearing up tracks, burning 
bridges, capturing several places and threatening 
Columbus, General Sullivan's head-quarters. 

At Trenton he captured and paroled seven hundred 
prisoners, and on his return struck Colonel Dunham 
with sixteen hundred men. Dunham's trains were 
taken and his small force was surrounded and its 
surrender demanded. The brave Dunham refused, and 
just then General Sullivan suddenly appeared at the 
head of two brigades and made a furious assault upon 
Forrest. The boot was now on the other foot. Forrest 
had outnumbered Dunham, but he found himself over- 
matched by Sullivan, and after a sharp brush he 
deemed it wise to seek safer quarters. Two hundred of 
his men had fallen, while four hundred were made pris- 
oners, and he himself very narrowly escaped capture. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 255 

It was a season of raids. While Forrest was mak- 
ing this bold dash on Rosecrans's left and rear, Morgan 
was busy upon his right, dashing through the heart of 
Kentucky, taking spoil and prisoners and doing great 
damage. But this work was not all on one side. The 
Union General Carter was at the same time occupied 
in destroying bridges on the East Tennessee and Vir- 
ginia Railroad, which connected Bragg's army with 
that of Lee in Virginia, and succeeded in doing con- 
siderable damage, in especial burning the great bridge, 
seven hundred and fifty feet long, over the Holston 
River. 

The great exploit of Forrest, that which Lord 
Wolseley said read like a romance, came in April, 1863, 
when Rosecrans, who contemplated moving on Bragg 
at Chattanooga, sent out an expedition under Colonel 
Streight for the purpose of sweeping round to Bragg's 
rear, destroying supplies of every kind, and doing 
everything possible to cripple him. There were eigh- 
teen hundred men under Streight, who left Nashville 
on April 8 and made his way, partly by land and partly 
by water, until he reached the command of General 
Dodge, then marching on Tuscumbia, in northern 
Alabama. 

This was a feint to mask the real object of the 
expedition. Streight was directed to march with 
Dodge long enough to give the impression that he 
formed part of Dodge's force, then to drop out and 
strike across towards Rome, in Georgia, destroying 
the ironworks there. Atlanta was also to be reached, 
if possible, and its railroad lines destroyed. 

Streight's men were not mounted when they left 
Nashville. They were ordered to pick up horses and 
mules on the wav, but half of them were still on foot 



256 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

when Dodge's command was reached. On their march 
with him they added to their supply of animals, but 
part of them were still on foot when they were ready 
to break off and start on their journey east. Dodge 
meanwhile kept on southward and swept around into 
Mississippi, destroying public property as he went and 
finally returning to Corinth. 

Colonel Streight was a proved and stalwart cavalry 
leader, well adapted for the task before him, and he 
might have succeeded but for " that devil, Forrest," as 
he called his keen pursuer. The route to be traversed 
was a barren, mountainous region, chosen because 
most of its sparse population were Union sympathizers. 
The road was so steep and rocky and forage so scarce, 
that mules were taken instead of horses, as being 
more sure-footed and needing less food. 

Carefully as this affair had been managed, the 
gathering of mules gave rise to a suspicion that some 
mysterious movement was on foot, and Forrest brought 
his corps of hard riders at top speed from Tennessee 
to be on hand if needed. He aided General Rodney 
in giving Dodge what trouble he could until the 
evening of the 28th, two days after Streight had set 
out, when word was brought him that a large body 
of Union troopers had been seen riding towards 
Moulton. 

The quick-witted raider guessed in a moment what 
this meant and without a second's delay he began 
preparations for a sharp pursuit. A suitable body of 
his best men was hastily selected, several days' rations 
were cooked, corn was gathered for the horses, and 
shortly after midnight Forrest and his men were off 
on one of the hardest rides of their lives. There were 
twelve hundred in his band, reckless and hardy " irreg- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 257 

ulars," veterans of the saddle whose prowess had been 
tried on many a hard-fought field and in many a bold 
foray. 

So swift was their ride that at dawn of the 30th, 
when Streight was toiling onward through the ugly 
mountain country before him, the boom of cannon in 
the rear gave him the startling news that an enemy 
was already in pursuit. Forrest's men had rested 
during the night, and now with wild yells charged up 
the narrow mountain road. They were severely pun- 
ished for their haste, their wary antagonist having 
formed an ambuscade by the roadside, by which many 
of their saddles were emptied before they got out of 
the trap. 

Forrest's whole force now joined in the attack, 
but they met with a similar reception, being driven back 
by a murderous fire and a fierce charge, while two 
of their gtms were captured with their caissons and 
ammunition. Forrest now dismounted his men and 
charged as infantry, only to find that no foe confronted 
him, the Federals being well on the road again, taking 
their captured guns. 

From this time on the chase was largely a running 
fight. Forrest kept hotly on the track, giving his foes 
no rest, while a fight took place whenever the two 
forces came within reach. Do what he could, Streight 
could not shake off his persistent foe, who clung to him 
as close as a chestnut burr. 

Streight having used up his ammunition, soon aban- 
doned the guns, after spiking them. Further on he 
was pressed so sharply that he was obliged to leave 
his wagons. They were fired, but Forrest's men 
reached them in time to put out the fire and gain 
their much-needed contents. Pursued and pursuers 
17 



258 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

had now left the mountains and were in the open 
country. For four days and nights the chase con- 
tinued. On the morning of May 2 Colonel Streight 
threw off his persistent pursuers for a brief time by 
crossing the deep and rock-walled Black Creek and 
burning the bridge. 

The stream was said to be too deep to ford and the 
nearest bridge was several miles away. The weary 
Federals now thought they could get an interval of 
rest. What was their surprise and dismay, by the 
time they had gone four miles on their way, to hear 
the shouts of the indefatigable foes once more behind 
them. A girl in the vicinity had shown Forrest a 
difficult but fordable spot in the stream and he had 
quickly gained the other side. 

When May 3 dawned the hot chase was nearing its 
end. Forrest had given his men ten hours* sleep, while 
Streight and his worn-out men had plodded on. This 
all-night ride was a fatal error. While the men were 
at breakfast Forrest's troopers, fresh from their slum- 
ber, rode briskly up and the old teasing rattle of small 
arms called the worn fugitives into line again. So 
exhausted were they that many of them fell asleep as 
they lay behind a ridge, gun in hand and finger on 
trigger. 

The game was evidently up. Streight proposed to 
fight on, but his officers were all against it, and after 
a brief parley surrender was decided upon. Forrest 
had won after the hardest ride of his life. Colonel 
Streight's raid to the South had ended like General 
Morgan's raid in Ohio. The two were alike in another 
way. Morgan escaped from the prison in which he 
was confined and Streight did the same. He and four 
of his officers, who were confined in Libby Prison, took 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 259 

part in the memorable escape from that place, by an 
excavated tunnel, in February, 1864. 

During the remainder of 1863 and the following year 
Forrest was exceptionally active. He was acknowl- 
edged to be one of the most daring and skilful of the 
Confederate leaders and was given very much of a 
roving commission, his service being more in the nature 
of guerilla than regular warfare. In October, 1863, he 
made a bold raid into Tennessee, collected supplies, 
and was away again before his pursuers could over- 
take liim. But his greatest and most successful raid 
was in the spring of 1864, when, at the head of about 
five thousand veteran horsemen, he swept up into west 
Tennessee and after a short rest at Jackson pushed on 
towards Kentucky. 

Here he despatched Colonel Faulkner to capture 
Union City, a fortified railroad centre with a garrison 
of four hundred and fifty men. This was surrendered 
after a brief resistance. Hickman was occupied, and 
the daring raider rode north as far as the Ohio River, 
where an attack was made on the town of Paducah. 
The garrison here was about seven hundred strong, 
but it was aided by gunboats on the river, and though 
Forrest had three thousand men, they failed to take 
Fort Anderson, which the garrison had occupied. The 
approach of reinforcements caused him to decamp after 
having lost over three hundred men. 

He was more successful in an attack on Fort Pillow, 
on the Mississippi above Memphis, his capture of which 
was followed by a massacre which has blackened his 
fame. The fort was garrisoned by about five hundred 
and fifty men, half of them colored troops, and was 
taken by storm after futile negotiations for a surrender. 
Forrest's men, many of whom had concealed them- 



26o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

selves close up to the fort under cover of the flag of 
truce, sprang up and in a trice were over the parapets 
with a cry of " No quarter ! " 

The garrison threw down their arms and many of 
them attempted to escape, but a frightful massacre 
began, the defenceless fugitives being cut down merci- 
lessly on all sides. The fact of many of them being 
negro soldiers was the incitement to this murderous 
onslaught, which, however, was not confined to the 
blacks, the slaughter being indiscriminate. Of those 
within the fort only one hundred were taken prisoners, 
the remainder being cut down until the fort ran red 
with blood. 

This act of cruelty, which stands alone in the annals 
of the war, has covered the name of Nathan Forrest 
with a pall of infamy which was perhaps deserved, 
perhaps not. There is conflicting testimony as to how 
far he was personally responsible, how far it was the 
spontaneous act of his men, infuriated at being con- 
fronted by negro soldiers. However this be, it was a 
most unhappy occurrence, unmatched in America since 
the blood-thirsty acts of Santa Anna in Texas. It 
fitted best with the savage acts of earlier times, when 
the cold-blooded slaughter of prisoners of war was a 
common occurrence. 

General Sturgis, with a force of about twelve thou- 
sand men, was by this time on the march to intercept 
the daring raider, but failed to do so, Forrest easily 
evading him. Sturgis some weeks later marched into 
Mississippi with instructions to hunt up and beat the 
bold cavalry leader. The result was disastrous. For- 
rest awaited his pursuers in a strong position and 
defeated them so thoroughly that their wagon train 
was abandoned, and. when Sturgis reached Memphis on 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 261 

his retreat he had left behind him more than a fourth 
of his men and almost everything else. 

This unlucky attempt was followed by another expe- 
dition, under General Smith, in July, which met and 
repulsed the Confederates. Smith advanced again in 
August and spent two weeks in his march into Missis- 
sippi, but was perplexed in finding only small bodies of 
cavalry to oppose him. What had become of Forrest 
and his men? 

He was soon to learn. At dawn on the 21st of 
August, Forrest dashed boldly into Memphis with 
three thousand men, the bulk of its defenders being 
then far down in Mississippi. He made directly for the 
Gayoso House, the head-quarters of Generals Hurlbut, 
Washburne, and Buckland, whom he hoped to capture. 
He failed to find them, but carried away several of their 
staff officers and about three hundred soldiers. He 
proposed also to open the prisons and release the 
Confederate captives, but the soldiers around 
Memphis were now rapidly gathering in arms and 
the shrewd leader felt it necessary to leave in 
haste, after having spent about an hour in the 
town. The exploit was a bold and brilliant one, 
of the tvpe of the romantic deeds of the knights 
of old. 

Forrest's final exploit was in September, 1864, in 
connection with Hood's march to cut Sherman's com- 
munications. He dashed, as so often before, into 
Tennessee, did damage wherever he could, captured a 
thousand prisoners, and made himself so troublesome 
generally that thousands of pursuers gathered on all 
sides around him, hoping to catch him in a net. But 
the wily raider saw his peril, and at once paroled his 
prisoners, destroyed five miles more of railroad, and 



262 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

rode away with little loss, leaving his pursuers to draw 
their net after the fish had foiled them again. 

This was the last important exploit of this dashing 
cavalier of the South. He was made a lieutenant- 
general in February, 1865, and surrendered in May, at 
the end of the war. In his later life he engaged in 
business and for a time was president of the Selma 
and Memphis Railroad. He died October 29, 1877. 
Though one dark deed blackened his fame, the Civil 
War hardly produced his peer as a cavalry leader, and 
he and his daring troop of hard riders were of inesti- 
mable advantage to the Confederate forces in the 
Southwestern area of the war. 



JOSEPH HOOKER, THE HERO OF THE 
BATTLE ABOVE THE CLOUDS 

A RETIRED army officer, running a plantation in 
California, Joseph Hooker lost no time when news of 
the outbreak of war reached him in hastening to 
Washington and offering his services to the Govern- 
ment. He met with a disappointment. General Scott 
gave him no hopes of a place. He already had more 
officers than he could use. Hooker turned away in 
disgust, but before leaving Washington he called on 
the President and told who he was and how his offer 
had been received. He was, he said, a brevet lieu- 
tenant-colonel and had served in the Mexican War, 
and went on to say that he had seen the battle of 
Bull Run, and that, without wishing to boast, he con- 
sidered himself a better general than there was on that 
field. 

There was something in his visitor's tone and 
manner that pleased Lincoln, who rose from his chair, 
slapped him in a friendly way on the shoulder, and 
said: 

" Colonel, not lieutenant-colonel, Hooker, I like you. 
Don't leave Washington ; I have a regiment for you." 

When it came it proved to be a brigade instead of a 
regiment, and instead of colonel. Hooker was made 
brigadier-general of volunteers, his commission being 
dated back to May 17. His troops were raw New 
Englanders whom he at once began to drill into shape. 

Joseph Hooker was himself from New England, 
his place of birth being Old Hadley, Massachusetts, 

263 



264 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

the date November 13, 181 4. He entered West Point 
as a cadet in 1833 and graduated in 1837, being then 
appointed second Heutenant in the artillery and sent to 
Florida, where the war with the Seminole Indians 
was going on. He afterwards served on the northern 
frontier, where he was promoted first lieutenant, and 
when the Mexican War broke out was there at the 
start, taking a distinguished part under General Taylor 
in the siege and capture of Monterey. 

His later service in Mexico was under General 
Scott, in whose army he fought gallantly in the several 
battles near the capital, including the storming of 
Chapultepec. His excellent conduct in these engage- 
ments was rewarded with the brevet ranks of captain, 
major and lieutenant-colonel, and the commission of 
captain. He was Captain Hooker in 1853 when, tired 
of a military life, he resigned his command and 
engaged in agricultural occupations near Sonoma, Cali- 
fornia, where he bought a large estate which he man- 
aged successfully for five years. 

In 1858 he was appointed superintendent of military 
roads in Oregon and when war broke out in 1861 he 
was a colonel in the California militia. We have told 
above how he hastened to Washington and through the 
President's favor got a brigade. During the autumn 
of 1861 he had charge of the defences of Washington 
and in 1862 took part in McClellan's invasion of the 
Peninsula. 

We first hear of him as a fighter after the fall of 
Yorktown and during the stand of the retreating Con- 
federates at Williamsburg. Hooker was in advance 
in the attack on this place, where he sharply assailed 
a strong Confederate position, and for nine long hour?. 
kept up the fight alone, the dreadful state of the roads. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 265 

turned into deep mud by heavy rains, preventing rein- 
forcements from reaching him. It was late in the 
afternoon when General Phil Kearney came up and 
relieved him, allowing him to withdraw his fearfully 
thinned regiments. The stubborn fight here won from 
his men the complimentary title of " Fighting Joe 
Hooker," while his promotion to major-general of 
volunteers was dated May 5, the day of this fight. 

Hooker saw his next fighting in the fierce battle of 
Fair Oaks, and had daringly advanced to a point within 
four miles of Richmond when General McClellan 
ordered him back from his perilous reconnoissance, 
saying that he could not afford to lose Hooker and his 
men. As may be presumed, Hooker played his part 
bravely in the Seven Days' battle, doing signal service 
at Charles City Cross-Roads on June 29, where his 
division helped to hold a vital position on the flank of 
the army in its noted " change of base." He fought 
gallantly also in the battle of Malvern Hill, on July i. 

All readers of history know the events that followed 
McClellan's repulse — Jackson's advance against Gen- 
eral Pope, the hasty recall of McClellan to Washington, 
the march northward of Lee, the great Confederate 
victory on the old battle-field of Bull Run, Lee's subse- 
quent invasion of Maryland, and the climax of this 
active series of events on the bloody field of Antietam. 
In all these movements Hooker was prominent. In 
the Bull Run battle his division did good service at 
Bristow Station, Manassas, and Chantilly, and it was 
especially active in the campaign in Maryland. 

Again under McClellan, he commanded the first 
corps and with it gallantly carried the Confederate 
positions in the north pass of South Mountain, opening 
a way for the advance of the main army. At Antietam 



266 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

he had the honor of opening the battle, crossing the 
creek with the division under his command and ad- 
vancing through the woods, where he struck Hood's 
corps, and drove it back. That night his men rested 
on their arms on the ground they had won. 

He opened the fight also on the next day, September 
17, advancing at dawn with about eighteen thousand 
men and vigorously attacking the Confederate left, 
under Stonewall Jackson. The contest was severe and 
obstinate, but Hooker was aided by an artillery fire 
from beyond the creek. This enabled him to push 
back the Confederates with heavy loss through the 
first line of woods and across an open field which 
had been covered thickly with standing corn. It was 
the famous " corn field " fight of the battle. While the 
fight was at its height, about nine o'clock, Hooker, who 
was in the van of his lines, received so severe a wound 
in the foot that he had to be carried from the field. He 
had done noble work, but the rest of the battle had to 
be fought without " Fighting Joe's " aid. Recognition 
of his services came three days later, in a promotion to 
the grade of brigadier-general in the regular anny. 

Hooker was in fighting trim again in December, 
when Burnside, who had taken McClellan's command, 
was facing Lee at Fredericksburg, with the Rappa- 
hannock flowing between. The crossing of that stream 
took place on the 12th, Hooker's corps being kept in 
reserve, " to spring upon the enemy in their retreat," 
in the event of their being beaten. They were not 
beaten. The charging troops were terribly decimated 
by Lee's guns. Thousands fell on the field, and at last 
Burnside, despairing of success, ordered Hooker across, 
with such of his force as he had in hand, saying doubt- 
fully, " That crest must be carried to-night." 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 267 

Hooker crossed, but a rapid survey of the field 
showed him that the task set was an impossible one, 
and he sought Burnside, begging him to desist from 
further attacks. His arguments were fruitless. Burn- 
side would not change his plan, so Hooker ordered 
Humphreys with his four thousand men to charge 
Lee's works with empty muskets, using the bayonet 
only. The result was as Hooker had predicted. When 
near the fatal stone wall which they were sent to storm, 
a terrible hail of rifle balls laid nearly half their number 
prostrate on the field, the remainder rushing back. 
This ended the frightful contest, the Union army los- 
ing nearly fourteen thousand men in that one day's 
work of death. 

This bloody failure closed Burnside's career as a 
commander-in-chief. He devised plans to flank Lee 
and march upon Richmond, but he was checked by an 
order from the President, who had been advised by 
some of the generals that the feeling against him in the 
army was so bitter that it would not be safe to lead 
them against the enemy. When news of this reached 
Burnside he was exasperated. He believed that his 
generals were conspiring against him to cause discon- 
tent in the army, and asked the President for the 
ignominious dismissal from the service of some of 
them, especially of General Hooker. Lincoln did not 
agree with him and suggested that Burnside, under the 
circumstances, had better himself give up the command. 
This was done, and Hooker was appointed in his place. 

The new commander lost no time. His plans were 
like those of Burnside, to flank Lee and put Richmond 
in danger, and as soon as the army was strengthened 
and got into good fighting condition he put it on the 
march. Heavy rains hindered the movement for a time, 



268 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

but in late April the troops were led up the Rappa- 
hannock, which they soon crossed, reaching a place 
called Chancellorsville, ten miles southwest of Freder- 
icksburg, on the 30th. 

It was Hooker's idea that Lee would hasten towards 
Richmond for its protection, but the alert Confederate 
commander did not look at things in that way. He 
preferred to fight rather than to flee. Hooker was now 
in a region well named the Wilderness, a forest of 
shrub-oaks and pines and tangled undergrowth, broken 
by ravines and morasses, where he might be taken at a 
disadvantage by one familiar with the ground. Lee's 
army was only half as strong as Hooker's, but the 
works he had built south of the river helped to 
equalize the two forces, and he marched boldly on his 
antagonist, leaving a division at Fredericksburg to 
protect it from attack. 

On the 1st of May, 1863, the two armies faced each 
other in the ugly Wilderness woodland and before the 
day was over some sharp fighting took place. But the 
next day was the great day of battle. Lee, feeling 
himself too weak to risk a frontal attack, tried a 
perilous expedient. He divided his army into two, 
sending Stonewall Jackson with twenty-five thousand 
men on a long sweep through the woods to surprise 
Hooker's rear. 

Had Hooker known of this desperate elTort he could 
have destroyed Lee's army by fighting it in detail. But 
the flank movement proved completely successful. 
While Lee was making active demonstrations in front, 
as if about to attack in full force, Jackson was pushing 
through the dense jungle of the Wilderness towards 
the rear. Just before six o'clock in the evening, when 
the men of the eleventh corps were preparing for 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 269 

supper and rest, without a thought of danger, they 
were aroused by a flight of the wild game of tlie 
forest — deer, wild turkeys, and hares — and after them, 
with wild yells, came Jackson's twenty-five thousand 
men, bursting from the thickets and rushing upon them 
like a tornado, a murderous fire pouring from their 
long battle-line. 

The surprise was complete. The astonished Fed- 
erals sprang to their feet in a panic and wildly fled 
towards the river, the alarm spreading until the woods 
were filled with fleeing and pursuing men and the whole 
corps was rushing backward in utter dismay. 

Night was well on before the flight was checked. 
The greatest success had followed Jackson's movement, 
though it was attended by one serious disaster, Jackson 
himself falling badly wounded by inadvertent shots 
from his own men. He died a few days later, and the 
Confederate army lost its " Stonewall " of skill and 
daring. 

The next day was one of hard fighting, but in the 
midst of it, at a critical movement, Hooker was pros- 
trated by the effect of a cannon ball, which struck a 
pillar of the Chancellor House and threw it against 
him. He was only stunned, but it was an hour before 
he recovered, and during that hour the army remained 
without a head while Lee was gaining important ad- 
vantages. The Union army was driven steadily back, 
and at nightfall rested on the Rappahannock. A 
heavy rain saved it from attack on the 4th, but on the 
next day Hooker led his defeated men across the river. 
Burnside's defeat at Fredericksburg had been matched 
by Hooker's at Chancellorsville, and Lee was master of 
the situation. 

The two months, which followed this disastrous 



270 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

affair were filled with important events, including Lee's 
rapid march northward and ending with his defeat at 
Gettysburg. Hooker, as soon as he learned of Lee's 
movement, followed him in all haste to the north, 
keeping between him and Washington and guarding 
the capital of the nation against any sudden attack. 
The Potomac was soon passed and both armies were 
in Maryland, while Lee's advance troops were on the 
soil of Pennsylvania. 

Under these circumstances Hooker did not see any 
reason for keeping a garrison of eleven thousand men 
at Harper's Ferry, and telegraphed to Halleck, the 
commander-in-chief, for permission to withdraw them 
and add them to his army. Halleck refused and 
Hooker immediately resigned, saying that he could not 
deal with the enemy unless he could control all the 
available troops. His resignation was accepted and 
he was ordered to Baltimore, there to await commands 
from the adjutant-general. General Meade was ap- 
pointed in his place. After waiting three days at Bal- 
timore without hearing a word from Washington, 
Hooker grew impatient and went to that city, where he 
was at once arrested by Halleck's order, on a charge 
of visiting the capital without leave. Meanwhile 
Meade was given full permission to withdraw the 
troops from Harper's Ferry, so that the whole affair 
looked like a personal affront from Halleck to Hooker. 
It was a perilous one under the critical circumstances. 

This ended General Hooker's connection with the 
army of the Potomac. In September he was sent with 
two corps to eastern Tennessee to take part in the 
stirring events proceeding in that quarter. The army 
there, badly defeated at Chickamauga, was in a peril- 
ous-position at Chattanooga, its line of supplies being 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 271 

kept open only with great difficulty. Hooker had a 
hand in overcoming this critical state of affairs, win- 
ning a victory at Wauhatchie and opening a safe line 
of food supplies. 

But Hooker's most famous exploit came in Novem- 
ber, after Grant had taken command at Chattanooga. 
Overlooking that stronghold on the south was the 
high peak known as Lookout Mountain, rising fifteen 
hundred feet above the river level. This Hooker was 
ordered to attack, and in this way to distract the 
attention of the Confederates while Sherman was 
crossing the Tennessee with his troops. " Fighting 
Joe " was ready and willing. His men were under 
arms at four o'clock in the morning of the 24th, and 
rapidly made their way through the darkness and the 
heavy mist which lay upon the country after day dawn 
to the mountain's foot. Most of the Confederates in 
the rifle pits were taken in the advance through the 
mist, and on up the rugged slopes went the men, climb- 
ing up steep ledges and through tangled ravines, cut- 
ting the felled trees with which the mountain side 
had been covered, making their way under the very 
muzzles of the Confederate cannon, and driving the 
enemy before them as they rushed resistlessly on. 

When the works at the mountain's base had been 
taken. Hooker, fearing disorder and entanglement in 
the mist-covered mountain, ordered his men to halt. 
But he found them warmed to their work and not to 
be stayed, and he now gave them the order to charge. 
Up the steep slopes went the eager, cheering fellows, 
full of enthusiastic valor, driving all before them, until 
the plateau was reached and the Confederates were 
sent flying in dismay and confusion down the moun- 
tain side, towards the opposite valley. 



272 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

It was now two o'clock in the afternoon. A dense 
cloud covered the mountain, rendering further move- 
ments perilous. From the valley and the town below 
many eyes were strained that day to catch a glimpse 
of what was taking place under the veil of vapor, from 
which came the roar of battle. At intervals, as the 
wind disturbed the mist, a glimpse of the struggling 
battalions might be caught far up the mountain side, 
but the result was not fully known until a clear sunrise 
the next morning showed the National flag waving 
from the top of Pulpit Rock, the extreme point of the 
mountain overlooking Chattanooga. Such was the 
celebrated " battle above the clouds," by which the 
name of " Fighting Joe Hooker " has since been best 
remembered. 

Hooker also took an active part in the subsequent 
capture of Missionary Ridge and the pursuit of Bragg 
after the battle, and in Sherman's famous march to 
Atlanta in the following year he commanded a corps 
of the army and did his share well and bravely. 

With this campaign Hooker's career as a fighter 
ended. He afterwards had command of the northern 
department, and in March, 1865, was brevetted major- 
general. The full rank of major-general was given him 
in 1868 when, attacked by paralysis, he retired from the 
army. He died October 31, 1879. Despite his failure 
at Chancellorsville he has since been regarded as one 
of the bravest fighters in the American army. 



JOSEPH WHEELER, THE "FIGHTING 
JOE" OF THE CONFEDERACY 

It was largely in the cavalry service that the Con- 
federate soldiers made a reputation for daring advent- 
ure and striking achievements, this giving them an 
opportunity for bold dashes to the rear of the Federal 
army and the display of deeds of desperate courage 
and romantic exploits, not open to a like extent to the 
Federal cavalrymen. There were reckless guerillas, 
like Morgan, the bold invader of Indiana and Ohio, 
and Mosby, some of whose exploits read like those of 
Marion of Revolutionary fame. Men of greater note 
were Stuart and Forrest, sketches of whose lives we 
have given, and Wheeler, the daring dragoon, with 
whom we have now to deal. 

Joseph Wheeler was born at Augusta, Georgia, 
September lo, 1836. But, though of Southern birth, he 
was of New England Puritan stock, his father being 
a Connecticut man who had made Georgia his home. 
The boy was well educated and was finally sent to 
West Point, where he graduated as a soldier in 1859, 
serving as second lieutenant of dragoons in Kansas 
and New Mexico until April, 1861, when he resigned 
to enter the Confederate service. 

Wheeler began his career in this service with a low 
grade for a West Pointer, that of first lieutenant of 
artillery, but in September he was made an infantry 
colonel, and in the battle of Shiloh, where he showed 
much ability, was given command of a brigade. He 
had two horses shot under him and distinguished him- 

18 273 



274 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

self in the last charge. During the retreat he was 
chosen to cover the rear and check pursuit. From 
Shiloh Beauregard led the Confederate forces to the 
fortified town of Corinth, in northern Mississippi, 
and here Wheeler found plenty of work to do, being 
in command in front of the town, where he was kept 
busy in fighting. The siege ended in an evacuation of 
the city under cover of night, Wheeler again covering 
the rear and having some sharp fighting with the 
Federal advance. 

Until this period of the war Wheeler had an infantry 
command, and it was not until July, 1862, that he was 
given an opportunity to show his genius as a cavalry 
leader. He was now sent to West Tennessee with a 
cavalry brigade to mislead the enemy, while General 
Bragg, then in command, was moving his forces from 
Tupelo, Mississippi, to Chattanooga. Wheeler did his 
best to keep the Federal troops busy by sharp skir- 
mishes and sudden attacks on outposts, through which 
he interrupted the communication between Bolivar 
and Jackson, Tennessee. 

During the remainder of the summer Wheeler, For- 
rest, and Morgan made things lively in Tennessee and 
Kentucky, and when, in the late summer, Bragg began 
his famous expedition northward, Wheeler was his 
main reliance to disturb the enemy. Both armies 
headed in September for Louisville, Bragg's to capture 
that important city if possible, Buell's to save it from 
capture, and in all haste the soldiers in blue and 
grey streamed northward over the roads of the 
two St?ites, each army seeking to outstrip the other 
in speed. 

At Munfordville, in Kentucky, the two lines of 
march came together, and both armies strove eagerly to 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 275 

reach this point first. Wheeler, sent with his cavalry 
brigade to delay Buell's march, rode to Bowling Green, 
threw himself across his path, and did everything he 
could to annoy and delay him, checking him to such an 
extent that Bragg was first at the junction, and cap- 
tured the fort at Munfordville with its valuable arma- 
ment and four thousand prisoners. Buell in the end 
succeeded in saving Louisville from capture, but his 
enemy was meanwhile raiding the State at will and 
gathering a rich harvest of spoil from the fields and 
towns. 

The armies met in battle at Perryville on October 
8, in which engagement Wheeler commanded the 
cavalry and showed his usual daring and alertness. He 
had the busiest time of his life during Bragg's subse- 
quent retreat, in which, as chief of cavalry, he covered 
the rear, a service in which he had much earlier 
experience. During the thirteen days of the retreat, 
Wheeler, at the head of his active troopers, fought no 
less than twenty-six engagements, averaging two for 
each day, and enabled Bragg to withdraw his men and 
spoils in safety. For this useful service he was given 
the rank of brigadier-general. 

He was no less alert in December, when Bragg lay 
intrenched at Murfreesboro, and Rosecrans, who had 
superseded Buell, was marching upon him from Nash- 
ville. The new Federal commander found he had a 
veritable hornet in Joe Wheeler, who swept around 
into the rear of his army, attacked troops and supply 
trains, and in the short interval of twenty-four hours 
captured four hundred wagons, took over a thousand 
prisoners, destroyed a million dollars' worth of prop- 
erty, and seized many fresh horses to mount his men. 
During the battle that followed he commanded the 



276 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

cavalry and showed such gallantry that the Congress 
at Richmond gave him a vote of thanks. 

Wheeler was promoted major-general in January, 
1863, and was engaged in numerous fights during the 
following months, his activity being something phe- 
nomenal. His first exploit was early in February, 
when, at the head of a cavalry division, with Forrest 
as one of his brigadiers, he made a vigorous effort to 
recapture Fort Donelson, which Grant had taken early 
in his career. The garrison was weak, and he might 
have been successful but for the aid to the fort of gun- 
boats on the Cumberland. Wheeler's loss in this at- 
tempt was estimated at six hundred men. He lost 
others in later fights, but succeeded in causing great 
annoyance to the Federal forces. His greatest service 
to the Confederate cause, however, was during and 
after the battle of Chickamauga. 

He commanded a corps of cavalry in that battle, and 
took part in what is considered the most desperate cav- 
alry fight of the war, contributing his full share to the 
Federal defeat. After the battle and when Rosecrans was 
cooped up in Chattanooga, threatened by Bragg on the 
surrounding hills, Wheeler was sent north at the head 
of about four thousand mounted men to do what he 
could in the way of cutting off supplies from the 
beleaguered army. 

Crossing the Tennessee on September 30, he rode 
north on a nine days' raid, in which he was opposed 
by strong forces under Crook, McCook and Mitchell, 
yet succeeded in making such havoc as to threaten 
Rosecrans and his men with starvation. 

His first success was in the Sequatchie Valley, where 
he struck a supply train of nearly one thousand wagons 
on its way to Chattanooga and burned it before 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 277 

McCook, with two cavalry regiments, could come to its 
assistance. McCook reached the ground too late to 
save the train and fought with Wheeler until night, 
when the active raider slipped away over the moun- 
tains in the darkness and fell upon another supply 
train at McMinnville. This was captured, with six 
hundred men, and a large quantity of supplies was here 
destroyed. 

As before, he was overtaken after the mischief was 
done, General Crook riding upon him with two thou- 
sand men. Wheeler had other business than to stand 
and fight, and rode briskly away towards Murfrees- 
boro, his rear guard being overtaken by the second 
Kentucky cavalry under Colonel Long. Wheeler's 
men greatly outnumbered Long's, and they dismounted 
and fought till dark, when they sprang upon their 
horses and rode away at top speed, hoping to seize 
and hold Murfreesboro, a very important point in 
Rosecrans's line of communication. 

Wheeler's plans here miscarried. Murfreesboro was 
too strong to be taken except by siege, and he had a 
relentless pursuer on his track in George Crook. So 
he was soon up and away again, turning southward, 
burning bridges, capturing trains, tearing up rails, and 
destroying stores as he went. At Farmington he was 
struck by Crook, who cut his force in two, capturing 
four guns and two hundred men, with other spoil, and 
driving him in confusion south. 

Wheeler reached Pulaski that night, crossed the Ten- 
nessee with some loss, and made his way back to 
Bragg's head-quarters. He had lost about half his 
force, but his prisoners nearly equalled his losses, and 
he had destroyed National property of various kinds to 
the value of perhaps three million dollars. The de- 



278 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

struction of supplies in this bold raid left the army at 
Chattanooga, now under General Thomas, in a very 
serious state, which was not removed until after 
Grant's arrival and Hooker's expedition to restore the 
broken lines. 

In November Wheeler was despatched to the assist- 
ance of Longstreet, then besieging Burnside in Knox- 
ville, but he was back again in time to aid in covering 
Bragg's retreat from Missionary Ridge and to take an 
active part in the battle of Ringgold. 

We next hear of active service by Wheeler's cavalry 
in 1864, when Sherman had begun his march for 
Atlanta. In this long overland march, with its many 
battles and flank movements, Wheeler was almost in- 
cessantly occupied, fighting weekly or daily during 
June and July. In the end of July he defeated a raid 
under McCook and others, in which ten thousand men 
were engaged. Of these he captured more than three 
thousand. After taking part in the battles around 
Atlanta, he set out on August 9 on one of his accus- 
tomed raids into Tennessee, in which he cut Sherman's 
communications, captured seventeen hundred cattle, 
took many prisoners, and destroyed a vast quantity of 
supplies. 

When Sherman began his memorable march to the 
sea Wheeler was almost alone in his front, doing the 
little damage he could to check his march. The most 
efficient service he rendered was in the successful 
defence of Macon and Augusta, with their valuable 
workshops and ordnance factories. He hung again on 
Sherman's front in his march through the Carolinas, 
and was in at the death of the last Southern army, 
fighting with his old courage at the battles of Averas- 
boro and Bentonville and sharing in the surrender 



.rifs-_. 
w I. , 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 279 

of Johnston's army in April, 1865. He had shortly 
before been promoted to the highest rank, being made 
a lieutenant-general February 28, 1865. Forrest, his 
rival raider, received the same honor at the same time. 

General Wheeler was not an imposing figure of a 
soldier to look at, being a short, thin man, of not over 
one hundred and ten pounds' weight. But he was 
active, wiry, and hustling, a storehouse of energy, and 
in field service was without a rival. It is said that dur- 
ing the war he was under fire in more than eight 
hundred skirmishes and commander in over two hun- 
dred battles. 

The war ended, Wheeler went quietly back to the 
ordinary business of life, settling in Alabama, where 
he became a planter and a lawyer. He engaged also 
actively in politics and in 1881 became a member of 
Congress, in which he remained until 1900, with the 
exception of the two years 1884-85. His Congres- 
sional service did not prevent his coming to the aid of 
the Government when a new war broke out, that with 
Spain in 1898, in which the veteran trooper took an 
active part. 

It was in the evening of the 21st of April, 1898, that 
the startling message, " War is declared !" was flashed 
over the wires from Washington to Key West, and 
at an early hour of the next morning a fleet of war- 
vessels waiting there was on its way to sea to blockade 
the Cuban coast. On the 23d President McKinley 
issued a call for a volunteer force of one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand men. This force was much 
increased at a later date, and was divided into infantry 
corps and a cavalry division, the latter being put under 
command of General Wheeler, appointed major-gen- 
eral of volunteers. 



28o HEROES OF THE ARMY 

The old war-horse of the Confederacy, now over 
sixty years of age, responded with alacrity to the call 
for his services, and was quickly at work at Tampa, 
Florida, engaged in organizing the recruits as they 
came in. The most notable of the regiments in his 
command were those popularly known as the " Rough 
Riders," they being made up principally of cowboys 
from the West, and partly of expert horsemen from 
the East. One of these three regiments had been 
recruited by Theodore Roosevelt and was known to the 
people as " Roosevelt's Rough Riders," though it was 
commanded by Colonel Wood, Roosevelt serving under 
him as lieutenant-colonel. The first troops to reach 
Cuba, over fifteen thousand men, included eight troops 
of the Roosevelt regiment. With these were four 
troops each of the first and the tenth cavalry, mak- 
ing a total of less than a thousand men under General 
Wheeler's command. 

To these men, cavalry in name, but without horses, 
fell the honor of opening the war in the Santiago cam- 
paign. While the work of landing the army and its 
supplies was still going on. General Wheeler, inspired 
by his old impetuosity, had led his men to the front 
and brought them into battle. The Spaniards, out- 
numbering Wheeler's force, had taken a strong posi- 
tion on a hill covered with dense undergrowth, and 
had fortified their position with hastily constructed 
intrenchments, flanked by block-houses. At daybreak 
on the 24th of June Wheeler ordered an attack on 
this position. 

One road ran up the hill, a second wound round its 
base. The first was taken by the Rough Riders under 
Wood and Roosevelt, the second by the regulars under 
General Young. In the fight that followed there was 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 281 

some very hot work. While the cowboys and athletes 
toiled up the hill under the hot Cuban sun, the regu- 
lars forced their way up from the lower road, driving 
the Spaniards back, step by step. They finally took 
refuge in the block-house in front of the Rough Riders. 
The latter had meanwhile been losing men under the 
Spanish fire, and now made a furious charge upon the 
block-house, Wood leading the right, Roosevelt the 
left, leaders and men rushing on with the cowboy yell. 
That rush did the work. Before the block-house could 
be reached the Spaniards broke and fled, followed by 
a hail of bullets from the victors. The first land battle 
of the war was at an end. It had opened the way to 
Santiago. In this, their first victory on Cuban soil, 
sixteen Americans were killed and sixty-two wounded, 
the Spanish loss being considerably heavier. 

A week later, on July i, came the principal battle of 
the war. The army now lay spread out in a curving 
line about five miles long, fronting a range of hills and 
valleys which the Spaniards had strongly fortified. 
One of their strongest positions was at the old town 
of El Caney, faced by General Lawton and his infantry 
corps. A second was at the village of San Juan, 
crowning a steep hill which was well fortified, and de- 
fended by cannon. In front of this lay General 
Wheeler's force, consisting of three regiments and one 
battalion of cavalry, of which only two troops were 
mounted. Colonel Wood was in immediate command. 

The men were obliged to wade the San Juan River 
to get into line, and this was done under heavy fire 
from the Spanish works on the hill, which rose before 
them about three hundred feet high. A charge by 
these troops was not contemplated, but they were 
losing severely where they stood, and it was necessary 



282 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

either to advance or to retreat. Under these circum- 
stances General Wheeler gave the word to advance. 

Instantly, with a yell of vengeance, the men sprang 
forward and charged in fury, soon reaching the foot 
of the hill and then rushing up it in face of a severe 
fire from the works. In front of the Rough Riders 
rode Roosevelt, the only mounted man in the line, filled 
with the battle fury, and waving his hat and shouting 
to his men as he led on. Nothing could stop the gal- 
lant fellows. A murderous fire swept their ranks, but 
on up the hill they went, their lines thinning, but every 
man on his feet pressing upward, until the crest was 
reached, and they swarmed over the breastworks and 
into the block-house, driving out the defenders in wild 
haste and revenging their own losses upon them as 
they fled down the opposite slope. It was like the 
charge at Missionary Ridge, as sudden and unex- 
pected, and as successful. 

There was fighting on the following two days, and 
then the siege began which ended on the i8th in the 
surrender of Santiago. General Wheeler took part 
in the negotiations which led to this result, and with 
this his service in Cuba was practically at an end. But 
the fighting spirit was not yet taken out of the 
old dragoon. He was reelected to Congress after the 
war, but in 1899 he went to the Philippine Islands, 
where he took part in the fighting against Aguinaldo 
and his army. His campaign here was a brief but 
active one, he fighting in twelve engagements in ten 
days. In 1900 he was promoted to the rank of briga- 
dier-general in the United States army, and shortly 
afterwards was placed on the retired list of army ofii- 
cers, having passed the legal age of retirement. He 
died on the 25th of January, 1906. 




"^^ir^-^^.^^-^ 





AMBROSE E BURNSIDE, THE DEFENDER 
OF KNOXVILLE 

Ambrose Everett Burnside was born at Liberty, 
Indiana, May 23, 1824. Here he learned the trade 
of tailoring, being subsequently sent to West Point, 
where he graduated in 1847. ^^ ^^^t the army in 1852, 
with the rank of first lieutenant, afterwards making 
Rhode Island his place of residence. When the Civil 
War began he was appointed colonel of a volunteer 
regiment of Rhode Island troops, and with these took 
part in the battle of Bull Run, where he commanded 
General Hunter's brigade when the latter was 
wounded. In August he was made a brigadier-general. 

Burnside had shown himself skilful and able, and in 
January, 1862, he was selected for an important ser- 
vice, as commander of the troops, sixteen thousand 
in number, sent to take possession of important points 
on the coast of North Carolina. The expedition num- 
bered over a hundred vessels, of various styles and 
sizes, which left Hampton Roads on the nth, their 
destination a profound secret. The Confederate 
authorities, however, were not deceived as to the pur- 
pose of the expedition, and when it appeared off Roan- 
oke Island on the 5th of February, after suffering some 
loss from stormy weather, it found forts and garrison 
awaiting. 

The attack began with a cannonade from the fleet 
which did some damage to the forts. This was fol- 
lowed by the landing of a strong force of troops, who 
attacked the works on the 8th in overwhelming num- 

283 



284 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

bers. The fortifications were soon carried, three thou- 
sand prisoners falling into the hands of the assailants. 
The Government thus won with ease a strong position 
on the southern coast. A month later the towns of 
Newberne, on the Neuse River, and Beaufort, with 
Fort Macon, on Beaufort Harbor, were taken, together 
with some smaller places. Burnside's operations in 
this locality ended in July, when he was hastily sum- 
moned, with all the forces he could bring, to Fortress 
Monroe, General McClellan being apparently in great 
danger. 

Burnside in these operations had shown much 
energy, judgment, and sagacity. He was rewarded 
for his success with the rank of major-general and the 
command of a corps in McClellan's army. His next 
prominent service was on the battle-field of Antietam, 
where, on the morning of September 17, he was 
directed to cross the bridge over Antietam Creek, 
carry the heights opposite and advance along them to 
Sharpsburg. 

In this he had a most difficult and dangerous task, 
the approach to the bridge being a defile exposed to a 
raking fire from artillery and musketry. Several at- 
tempts to cross were repulsed with severe loss, and it 
was one o'clock in the afternoon before a crossing was 
forced and the heights were gallantly charged and 
taken. The movement was a threatening one for Lee, 
as it might have led to the capture or destruction of 
his whole army. Fortunately for him, General Hill's 
division, on its way from the capture of Harper's 
Ferry, came up at this critical moment and drove 
back Burnside's men with a heavy artillery fire. The 
bridge was held, but the heights were lost and the 
promising manoeuvre failed. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 285 

Burnside's successful operations in North Carolina 
and the fine generalship he had shown at Antietam 
had brought him into marked prominence, and when 
the Government, exasperated at the slowness of Mc- 
Clellan after his victory, decided to remove him from 
command, Burnside appeared to be the most suitable 
person to succeed him. The order relieving McClellan 
and putting Burnside in his place, as commander of 
the army of the Potomac, reached the camp near 
Fort Royal on November 7, 1862. Burnside accepted 
the honor reluctantly, but the orders of the Govern- 
ment were peremptory, and on the loth he agreed to 
try to do his best. 

It is a question if the Government did not make 
a serious mistake in the removal of McClellan at this 
juncture, when his period of preparation seemed at an 
end and he was apparently on the point of delivering 
battle, with promise of success. McClellan's plan was 
to attack Lee directly and seek the destruction of his 
army. Burnside, on the contrary, made the capture 
of Richmond his object. He accordingly advanced to 
the Rappahannock, opposite the city of Fredericksburg, 
with the intention of crossing at once and occupying 
the city and the commanding heights in the rear. 

This might easily have been done at the time, but 
Burnside delayed to bring up pontoon bridges and 
repair the railroad to Acquia Creek, his line of supplies. 
He feared that a heavy rain might cut oflF any party 
that crossed the river before the pontoons had reached 
him. In consequence weeks of delay and inaction 
followed, and by the time Burnside was ready to move, 
Lee had fully occupied and built strong fortifications 
on the Fredericksburg heights. The works were so 
formidable that to attack them, with Lee's veterans 



286 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

behind them, seemed but a forlorn hope, if it could be 
called a hope of any kind. 

A plan was devised by Burnside to cross at a point 
twelve miles down the river, but Lee discovered 
the movement and sent out a heavy force to that 
locality, where it was kept in readiness. Burnside now 
fancied that he might win by a sudden movement at 
Fredericksburg while Lee's forces were divided, and 
during the night and morning of December 1 1 the pon- 
toon bridges were thrown across the river. But a 
party of sharpshooters concealed in the town so delayed 
the work that it was evening before the bridges could 
be crossed and the town occupied, and the following 
day passed before the army was across. All had 
passed the bridge except the centre division, under 
Hooker, which was held back as a reserve. 

The fallacious hope which Burnside had entertained, 
of taking Lee by surprise while the army was divided, 
had been destroyed by the delay in crossing. Jackson's 
force, whose extreme right had been posted eighteen 
miles down the river, had been called in, and the 
whole of Lee's army, eighty thousand strong, lay 
behind the works on the heights, in which three 
hundred cannon were posted. 

An assault on so strong and well defended a posi- 
tion was perilous, but Burnside felt that he had been 
put at the head of the army to fight, he had crossed the 
river to fight, and to withdraw now without a struggle 
might be hailed as sheer cowardice. His troops were 
accordingly set in motion and were hurled along the 
whole line of Confederate works. Franklin on the left, 
Sumner on the right, marched gallantly against the 
intrenchments, which belched out torrents of cannon 
and musket fire and rent great lanes through the col- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 287 

umns of attack at every discharge. They fought hard 
and well, those gallant men, but no living being could 
stand against that frightful tempest of bullet, ball, and 
shell, and before the day was half over dead and dying 
by thousands strewed the field and every charge was 
driven back in dismay. 

Finally, as a last resort, Burnside ordered Hooker 
to cross with the men still under his command, saying, 
-' That crest must be carried to-night !" Hooker sur- 
veyed the field and hastened back to Burnside, tell- 
ing him that the effort was hopeless, and begging him 
to desist. The day's misfortunes had half maddened 
the unfortunate commander and he would listen to 
no remonstrance, saying that the works could and 
must be taken. Hooker accordingly sent out Hum- 
phreys's division, four thousand strong, in the terrible 
path which French, Hancock, and Howard had fol- 
lowed to slaughter. They were directed to march with 
empty muskets and to use the bayonet only. 

They had no opportunity for a bayonet charge. 
When near the fatal stone wall before which death had 
reaped so fatal a harvest, they were met with a terrible 
storm of rifle bullets, seventeen hundred of them being 
prostrated on the field, and the remainder driven in 
utter dismay down the blood-stained hills. Night soon 
after closed the awful contest, leaving the army of the 
Potomac fifteen thousand weaker than it had been that 
morning. Lee had probably lost not more than one- 
third of that number. 

Burnside, seemingly half distracted by his losses, 
was eager to renew the attack with his own old corps, 
the ninth, on the following morning, but the brave 
Sumner, whose men had lost so heavily the day before, 
dissuaded him from the mad effort, and nearly every 



288 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

general in the army joined in the protest. He there- 
fore reluctantly agreed to desist, and during the night 
of the 15th the entire army was withdrawn across the 
river and the pontoon bridges were taken up, leaving 
Lee master of the field. 

When the news of this terrible and, as it seemed to 
many, useless slaughter spread through the country 
there was a general feeling of horror, mingled in 
many quarters with execration. Burnside was re- 
garded as a butcher or an imbecile and the Government 
was bitterly blamed for replacing McClellan with such 
a man. For a time his reputation lay under a dark 
cloud, the feeling of the people being shared by his 
officers and men, who lost all faith in his ability as a 
commander. 

Burnside made no effort to shift the responsibility 
for the blame. It lay in considerable measure on those 
who had delayed the coming of the pontoons, but he 
made no excuses. Eager to retrieve the disaster, he 
formed new plans for an advance on Richmond, pro- 
posing to make a feint of crossing the Rappahannock 
above Fredericksburg, and then to flank Lee by cross- 
ing with his whole army below. At the same time 
twenty-five thousand cavalry were to sweep through 
the country in the rear of Lee's army, cutting his com- 
munications, destroying railroads and bridges, and 
doing all the damage possible. 

These projected movements were checked by an 
order from the President, telling him not to undertake 
any active operations without his knowledge. Sur- 
prised by this order, for he had been given full powers 
of action, Burnside instantly recalled the cavalry expe- 
dition and hastened to Washington to learn what it 
meant. The President informed him that the officers 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 289 

in his army had sent word to Washington that the 
feeling of the men was so bitterly against him that 
no movement he might undertake would be safe. As 
for the cavalry expedition, Lee had in some way 
been informed of it and it would be dangerous to 
attempt. 

Despite all this, Burnside determined to carry out 
his plan of flanking Lee. The cavalry expedition was 
withdrawn, but the army was put in motion, General 
Couch being directed to make a feint below the city, 
while Hooker and Franklin crossed above. All was in 
readiness to make the crossing on the night of Decem- 
ber 20, but that night there came a terrific storm of 
wind, snow, sleet, and rain, and the troops who were 
marching towards the fords found themselves mired 
and held almost immovable. Wagons and guns sank 
hub deep in mud, and morning dawned before an 
attempt could be made to cross. 

The foe now quickly discovered what was in prog- 
ress and made quick movements to contest the fords. 
As for Burnside, it was impossible to get his bridges 
into position in time to act effectively, and the army 
remained stalled in the mud until its three days' rations 
were nearly consumed, while the supply trains could 
not come up. It was then led back to its old position. 
The futile attempt was known in the army as the 
'' Mud March." The elements had worked to the dis- 
comfiture of the unlucky commander. 

Burnside now proceeded to Washington and laid 
complaints before the President against a number 
of his generals, Hooker heading the list. He accused 
them of " fomenting discontent in the army " and 
asked for their dismissal from the service. Lincoln 
was perplexed. He could not consent to the dismissal 
19 



290 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

or suspension of these important officers, and after a 
long talk with the irate commander it was finally 
agreed that he should be relieved of his command. 
This was done, and Hooker was appointed to succeed 
him. 

In March, 1863, Burnside was given the command 
of the army of the Ohio, taking with him his old corps, 
the ninth, and coming into cooperation with the army 
of the Cumberland. The ninth corps was with- 
drawn from his army to the aid of Grant in his opera- 
tions against Vicksburg, but with the remainder Burn- 
side advanced to cooperate with Rosecrans, and in 
August advanced upon and took possession of Knox- 
ville, in east Tennessee, it being evacuated by General 
Buckner on his approach. He also sent a force to 
Cumberland Gap, captured the garrison holding it, and 
restored that important pass to the National Govern- 
ment. The whole surrounding district was cleared of 
Confederate soldiers, and the many Unionists of east 
Tennessee, most of whom had been hiding in the 
mountains, hailed the coming of the Stars and Stripes 
with enthusiastic demonstrations of loyalty. 

This movement was not accepted by the Confederate 
leaders with equanimity. Various detachments of 
troops entered the region and Burnside was kept busy, 
his force being divided up to hold numerous points. 
After the defeat of Rosecrans at Chickamauga by the 
aid of Longstreet a more vigorous effort was made to 
drive out Burnside, Longstreet being detached and sent 
against him with his veterans. Bragg had weakened 
his army in the effort and Grant, quick to see the error 
his antagonist had made, sent word to Burnside to 
hold on to Knoxville, keeping Longstreet there while 
he dealt with Bragg. He would send him succor as 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 291 

soon as possible and perhaps Longstreet and his men 
might be captured. 

When Longstreet appeared in the vicinity of Knox- 
ville, he was met by Burnside's advance detachments 
and several sharp engagements took place. Long- 
street pushed on rapidly, and at Campbellville Burnside 
was so hotly pressed that he had to abandon his trains 
or fight. He chose the latter, repulsed his foe after a 
sharp engagement, and then hurried to the shelter of 
his intrenchments at Knoxville, when he soon found 
himself invested by Longstreet. 

Knoxville, standing on the northern bank of Holston 
River, a large portion of it on a table-land and one 
hundred and fifty feet above the stream, is well adapted 
to stand a siege, and Burnside's engineers quickly sur- 
rounded it with defensive works. Captain Poe directed 
their erection, and we are told that " under Poe's hands 
rifle-pits appeared as if by magic and every hill-top 
of the vast semicircle around Knoxville, from Tem- 
perance Hall to College Hill, frowned with cannon and 
bristled with bayonets." 

Burnside, in fact, was soon so strongly intrenched 
that he felt he had little to fear except a failure 
of his supplies. These the famous cavalry leaders 
Wheeler and Forrest were engaged in cutting off, 
while Longstreet pressed the siege briskly, hoping to 
compel a surrender by starvation in a few days. He 
was well aware of the weakness of Bragg and hoped 
quickly to get back to his aid. 

Not content with cutting off the channels of supply, 
Longstreet pushed the siege vigorously, and on No- 
vember 25 succeeded in capturing a knoll which com- 
manded Fort Saunders, five hundred feet away. His 
exultation over this success was dashed by the news 



292 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

that quickly reached him, that Bragg had been defeated 
and driven from Missionary Ridge at Chattanooga. 
He knew that help would now quickly reach Burnside 
from Grant, and his only hope lay in taking Knoxville 
by storm before it could arrive. Burnside received 
the same tidings and resolved to defend the place till 
the last extremity. 

The assault took place on the 28th, at eleven o'clock 
of a dark night, the storming parties being directed 
against Fort Saunders, one of the chief points in the 
defences. The rifle-pits were quickly taken, but behind 
these were lines of abatis and of wires stretched from 
stump to stump, a foot above the ground. The charg- 
ing party was thrown into utter confusion by these ob- 
stacles, whole companies being prostrated by the wires, 
while the guns of the fort played fearfully upon them. 
A single officer alone gained the summit of the parapet, 
and his body quickly rolled into the ditch, pierced by a 
dozen balls. The storm of shot was so heavy that three 
hundred of the foremost assailants surrendered, the 
others retreating. The fort was saved, and with it 
Knoxville and perhaps Burnside's army. Longstreet 
had promised his men that they should dine in Knox- 
ville that day, a promise not kept except to the three 
hundred prisoners. 

Meanwhile help was swiftly on its way, Granger 
approaching with twenty thousand men, while Sher- 
man led another strong body northward. Sherman's 
cavalry entered Knoxville on December 3, when 
Longstreet, finding himself in serious peril, raised the 
siege and hastily retreated. Burnside had won his 
fight. 

We must deal very briefly with the remainder of 
General Burnside's career. He had no further inde- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 293 

pendent command, but led the ninth corps in Grant's 
advance on Richmond, fighting in the several battles 
from the Wilderness onward. He occupied important 
political positions after the war, being elected gover- 
nor of Rhode Island successively in 1866, 1867, and 
1868, and United States senator in 1875 and 1881, 
dying September 13 of the latter year. As a man 
Burnside was warm-hearted and generous and as a 
soldier able, but the weight of a command like that of 
the army of the Potomac seemed beyond his strength. 



WINFIELD S. HANCOCK, THE SUPERB 
INFANTRY LEADER 

''Hancock was superb," said McClellan, in allusion 
to that gallant soldier's bayonet charge at Williams- 
burg, and the saying became proverbial during the 
war and was heard again in later years when Hancock 
was a prominent candidate for the Presidency. He 
never held an independent command, like the other 
soldiers whose deeds we have chronicled, but we select 
him from among the many distinguished subordinate 
soldiers, both for his notable record in the war and 
the prominent part he afterwards played in National 
politics. 

Winfield Scott Hancock was born near Norristown, 
Pennsylvania, February 14, 1824. He graduated at 
West Point in 1844 and continued in the army till his 
death, not leaving it to engage in business pursuits, 
like many others. He served on the frontier till 1846, 
and afterwards took part in the Mexican War, in which 
he won the grade of first lieutenant by gallantry at 
Contreras and Churubusco. This war ending, he went 
back to frontier duty, and in 1855 was appointed 
captain in the quartermaster's department and ordered 
to Florida, where there was new trouble with the 
Seminoles. In 1858 he was in the expedition to Utah 
to bring the Mormons to terms. He was serving as 
quartermaster of the southern district of California 
when the Civil War broke out. 

Eager to take part in the contest, he requested to be 
relieved from his peaceful duties, and sought active 
294 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 295 

service in the East, being first sent to Kentucky and 
afterwards being made brigadier-general of volunteers 
at McClellan's request, organizing a brigade at Lewins- 
ville, Virginia. He aided McClellan in training the 
army of the Potomac, and in the advance to the 
Peninsula his brigade was conceded to be the finest and 
best drilled in the whole army. 

On May 5, 1862, after the retreat of the Confederate 
defenders from Yorktown and their stand at Williams- 
burg, Hancock and Hooker were the principal leaders 
in the assault, Hooker fighting almost without aid for 
nine hours on the left, while Hancock was sent to the 
right to keep the Confederates in check in that direc- 
tion and to flank their works if possible. 

He had been sent at an early hour, with twenty-five 
hundred men, to seize an unoccupied redoubt. This 
he took without opposition and then advanced to 
another, twelve hundred yards in front of it. With his 
guns he now drove the defenders from two occupied 
redoubts still farther in front. General Johnston, in 
command of the Confederate army, had not known of 
the existence of the redoubts taken by Hancock. They 
were on the flank and rear of his line, and as soon as 
he learned of their occupation he sent General Early 
with a strong body of infantry to drive out the Federal 
troops. 

Hancock meanwhile had earnestly demanded rein- 
forcements, but, like Hooker, he was left to shift for 
himself. He was soon ordered to abandon the advance 
redoubt and fall back to his first position, but this he 
was loath to do, for he was soldier enough to know the 
advantage he had gained. But when, about five o'clock, 
he saw the two redoubts from which he had driven 
the defenders reoccupied by Confederate soldiers and 



296 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

a force moving on his front with the war-cry of " Bull 
Run!" he retired, fighting as he went, and taking post 
beyond the crest of a ridge in the rear, where he 
awaited Early's approach. 

Forming in line of battle, the troops rested impa- 
tiently until Early was within thirty paces, when Han- 
cock gave the word to rout them with a bayonet charge, 
saying, " Now, gentlemen, we'll give them the bayo- 
net." Instantly they sprang over the ridge and rushed 
with loud shouts upon the enemy, who quickly broke 
and fled before the spirited charge, losing over five 
hundred of their men. Hancock held his post without 
further trouble until reinforcements reached him. 
That post was the key of the position and Johnston 
did not dare remain with his flank so seriously threat- 
ened. During the night Williamsburg was evacuated. 
The army of the Potomac had won its first victory, 
Hooker and Hancock had done the work, and McClel- 
lan complimented the latter with his high words of 
praise, " Hancock was superb." 

In the battles around Richmond that followed Han- 
cock rendered valuable service, especially at Frazier's 
Farm, and was active during the Maryland campaign, 
taking command of the division of General Richardson 
on the death of the latter at Antietam. He was pro- 
moted major-general of volunteers November 29, 
1862, and took a prominent part in the attack on Fred- 
ericksburg in the following month. 

In this sanguinary battle Hancock was posted in 
front of Lee's strongest point of defence, Marye's 
Hill, at the foot of which, behind a stone wall, Long- 
street was posted, with heavy reserves in his rear. The 
first attack on this formidable line was made by Gen- 
eral French, whose troops were met with such a torrent 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 297 

of shot that they staggered back in dismay, nearly half 
of them being left on the field. Hancock, who was close 
behind, now pressed forward into that death-dealing 
tempest, his brigades fighting gallantly, especially the 
Irish regiments of Meagher, who dashed time after 
time against the fatal stone wall without a man being 
able to cross it. Fifteen minutes of this terrible work 
sufficed, and Hancock's men followed those of French 
in retreat. In this brief quarter of an hour, of his five 
thousand six hundred men more than two thousand 
had fallen. Other divisions came to the aid of French 
and Hancock, but all in vain, and in the end Hooker 
sent Humphreys in a bayonet charge against the same 
fatal point, only to have nearly half of them stretched 
dead or wounded on the field. 

Hancock next came into action at Chancellorsville, 
May 4, 1863, where he sustained his well-earned repu- 
tation, being the last to yield before the furious assault 
upon the Chancellor House, the central point of the 
battle. Only after the Federal lines were giving way 
on both sides did Hancock yield and gradually retire, 
his men fighting gallantly at every step. The struggle 
had lasted six hours before the Confederates at length 
got possession of the Chancellor House, and not until 
their artillery had beaten the once fair mansion into a 
ghastly ruin. 

Hancock was soon after put in command of the 
second corps, and at Gettysburg, after the death of 
General Reynolds, was sent by Meade in haste to take 
command. He was given power to offer battle where 
the advance of the army then was or to retreat to the 
line of Pipe Creek, which Meade had selected as an 
excellent point at which to make a stand. He reached 
Gettysburg just as the beaten forces were hurrying 



298 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

back towards Cemetery Ridge, which General Howard 
had selected as a good line of defence. Hancock agreed 
with him, checked the retreat and seized Gulp's Hill 
and Round Top as advantageous points, sending 
Meade word of what he had done. A new battle-line 
was quickly formed along the ridge between those two 
elevated points, and Hancock turned over the command 
to General Slocum, on his arrival with his corps. He 
met his own corps coming up, on his way back to report 
to General Meade. 

In the third day's fight, July 3, Hancock's corps, 
forming the left centre of Meade's army, sustained 
the terrible cannonade from Lee's artillery which pre- 
ceded Pickett's famous charge. Hancock's brigades 
had been so severely punished that not more than six 
thousand men remained when Pickett's powerful col- 
umn moved upon them. Yet shot and shell from his 
batteries tore lanes of death in Pickett's ranks and mus- 
ketry mowed them down as they came nearer, until a 
mere handful of them was able to mount the slope and 
plant their flag on the stone wall of defence. It was 
a last eflfort of courage, and those who remained alive 
were quickly forced to surrender. Three-fourths of 
the charging column were dead or captives. Hancock 
himself received a severe wound which disabled him 
from service in the field for several months. 

Despite his wound, and while lying on a stretcher, he 
sent word to Meade that the Confederate army was in 
retreat. Meade returned him his grateful thanks and 
Congress also voted him thanks, while his service in 
repelling Pickett's charge won him the complimentary 
title of " The Hero of Gettysburg." 

He was back in the army in time for Grant's great 
advance and took an active part in the battle of the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 299 

Wilderness, but it was at Spottsylvania, on May 12, 
that his most conspicuous service was rendered. The 
armies had fought fiercely all day of the loth, and 
rested on the nth, making busy preparations for the 
next day's struggle. Grant had determined to deliver 
his blow on Lee's right centre, and Hancock was 
chosen for the work. At midnight he left his position 
in front of Hill's corps and moved silently to the left, 
guided by the compass only ; then in two lines, under 
cover of a dense fog, he glided swiftly and noiselessly 
forward, over broken and wooded ground, towards the 
salient of an earthwork occupied by Johnston's division 
of Ewell's corps. 

Johnston's men were at breakfast, not dreaming of 
an assault, when they were startled by cheers of 
triumph, and the next moment a host of armed men 
came clambering over their works and rushing upon 
them with bayonets and clubbed muskets. Resistance 
was useless, and almost in less time than it takes to 
tell it the entire division was captured and with it the 
two brigades of General G. H. Stewart. Hancock sent 
back three thousand prisoners to Grant, with a pen- 
cilled note briefly saying: "1 have captured from 
thirty to forty guns. I have finished up Johnston and 
am going into Early." 

" Going into Early " did not prove so easy. The dis- 
aster had roused the entire Confederate army and Lee 
was making strenuous eflForts to prevent further loss. 
Hancock's men, filled with enthusiasm, could not be 
restrained. They followed the fleeing Confederates 
for a mile through the woods, but here found them- 
selves before a second line of breastworks, behind 
which the fugitives rallied and turned upon them. 
Other troops were hurried up, and the victors were 



300 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

forced back to the works they had captured and upon 
which heavy masses of men were soon hurled by Lee. 

At the same time strong reinforcements came to 
Hancock's aid, and a desperate struggle began, Lee 
being determined to retake the lost works. A tremen- 
dous weight of men and weapons was hurled upon 
Hancock, in charge after charge, five times in succes- 
sion, the combatants fighting all day long, though a 
heavy rain fell all afternoon. It was midnight before 
Lee at length sullenly withdrew his men, leaving Han- 
cock in possession of the works for which he had 
fought so long and well. But the Confederates were 
not at rest, and by the morning of the 13th an inner 
line of intrenchments had risen in front of Hancock, 
Lee's position seemed as strong as before. Yet he had 
lost very heavily, in killed, wounded and prisoners, 
on that eventful day. 

Hancock took an active part in the succeeding bat- 
tles, and at the bloody struggle of Cold Harbor his 
corps lost three thousand men. His efforts caused his 
old wound to break out again, but he took part in the 
siege of Petersburg and, in the following winter, 
organized a veteran corps at Washington. 

As for his character and conduct in the war, we can- 
not do better than quote McClellan's words of praise: 

" He was a man of most chivalrous courage and of 
superb presence, especially in action ; he had a wonder- 
fully quick and correct eye for ground and for handling 
troops ; his judgment was good, and it would be 
difficult to find a better corps commander." 

When the war ended Hancock was in command of 
the middle military division. In 1866 he resigned 
from the volunteer service and was made a major- 
general in the regular army and transferred to the 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 301 

department of Missouri, where he conducted expedi- 
tions against the Cheyenne and Sioux Indian tribes. 
He was ordered to the department of the Gulf in 1867, 
and on taking command there issued an order which 
attracted much attention and high commendation in 
the South, it stating that the mihtary force was to be 
used only in subordination to the civil authority. This 
in time brought him the Democratic nomination for the 
Presidency. 

He was a prominent candidate in the Democratic 
convention of 1868 and again in 1876, and in 1880 
received the nomination. In the election contest that 
followed, his popular vote fell only seven thousand 
below that of Garfield, though in the electoral college 
be was beaten by fifty-nine votes. 

He would probably have been elected but for an 
unfortunate remark made by him during the campaign, 
in which he spoke of the tariff as " a local issue." 
This evident lack of familiarity with civil affairs no 
doubt cost him many votes. 

Hancock remained in the army till his death. When 
General Meade died Hancock succeeded him in com- 
mand of the division of the Atlantic, dying at Govern- 
or's Island, New York harbor, February 9, 1886. 

General Hancock throughout was a brave, chival- 
rous and able soldier, ever loyal to his superiors, and 
a gentleman at all times and in all places. How 
able he would have proved as a President was never 
tested, though a life in the army is not a good 
school for statesmanship; but as a soldier he won a 
great and unstained reputation. 



GEORGE A. CUSTER, A KNIGHT OF THE 
SPUR AND THE SABRE 

The war between the States brought many daring 
cavalry leaders into the field, both North and South. 
Among those of the Northern army Sheridan stands 
first, but there were other daring and dashing knights 
of the spur, Pleasanton, Kilpatrick, Gregg, Merritt, 
and others. Marked among these for daring courage 
and striking exploits, and of especial interest from his 
last desperate and tragic conflict, was the youthful 
Custer, in his way the beau-ideal of a light dragoon. 
The story of his career, then, is one of the most inter- 
esting of those told of the bold horsemen of the North. 

George Armstrong Custer entered the war almost 
as a boy. He was born at New Rumley, Ohio, Decem- 
ber 5, 1839, graduated at West Point in 1861, and was 
at once assigned to the cavalry service as second lieu- 
tenant and sent to Washington, where trained soldiers 
were then much in request. He reached there in July, 
reported to General Scott, the commander-in-chief, and 
was sent by him with despatches to General McDowell, 
then in command on the Bull Run field. He reached 
there July 21, just as the battle was about to begin, 
delivered his despatches, and joined his regiment, the 
Second Cavalry, with which he saw some service dur- 
ing the fight. 

During the autumn he was sent home on sick leave, 

and in this interval is said to have promised his sister 

never again to touch intoxicating liquors, a pledge he 

kept sacredly till death. He was back again in Febru- 

308 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 303 

ary, 1862, now in the Fifth Cavalry, and when McClel- 
lan took command of the army General Kearney 
selected Custer as his first aide-de-camp, attracted to 
him, no doubt, by the engaging manner and presence 
of the handsome young cavalryman. 

His first show of fighting spirit was given when the 
Confederates were evacuating Manassas, when at the 
head of a detachment of troopers he briskly charged 
the retreating pickets while crossing a creek and sent 
them scampering for safety. During the siege of York- 
town General W. F. Smith selected him as assist- 
ant engineer on his staff, and as such he planned and 
built the works nearest the Confederate lines. In the 
pursuit of the enemy on their retreat from Williams- 
burg he was in Hancock's corps, reaching the Chicka- 
hominy in the advance of the army and being the first 
officer to wade that stream. He traced and marked the 
ford and reconnoitred the enemy's position before 
returning, and on the next day, June 16, at the head 
of two companies of cavalry and one of infantry, he 
daringly attacked a large detachment of the "Louisiana 
Tigers " acting as a picket guard, stampeding them 
and capturing their colors with his own hand. 

This, the first trophy of the kind taken by the army 
of the Potomac, was a feather in the cap of the young 
dragoon, and when General McClellan heard of his ex- 
ploits he at once appointed him an aide on his own staff. 

Custer took part in the various battles that followed, 
those before Richmond and the subsequent ones in 
Maryland, and in July was promoted first lieu- 
tenant. When General Hooker organized the cavalry 
as a separate corps of the army, Custer became an 
aide to General Pleasanton, division commander, and 
was prominent in the cavalry fights at Brandy Station 



304 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

and Aldie. In the latter, with Colonels Kilpatrick 
and Doughty, he led a cavalry charge upon the enemy, 
displaying such spirit and daring that the act brought 
him the commission of brigadier-general of volunteers, 
dating from June 23, 1863. 

As such the young soldier was put in command of 
the Michigan cavalry brigade, at the head of which 
he was present on the field of Gettysburg and, with 
Generals Gregg and Mcintosh, engaged in a hot fight 
with Stuart's cavalr}' division, forcing it back and pre- 
venting it from turning the left flank of Meade's army. 
His gallant conduct here was rewarded with the brevet 
rank of major in the regular service. 

In Lee's retreat from Gettysburg with his broken 
battalions Custer was hot upon his heels, slashing and 
sabring at every opportunity with his usual reck- 
less impetuosity, and pressing the rear so closely that 
he had a horse shot under him and fell himself 
with an ugly wound. He was not fit for the saddle 
again until Grant took the lead of the army of the 
Potomac in 1864, when his brigade was put under 
Sheridan and took part in the great cavalry raid round 
the rear of Lee's army, in which General Stuart, Lee's 
right hand cavalry leader, was killed. 

Riding in the advance, Custer led his men to within 
four miles of Richmond, where he made a spirited 
dash upon and captured the outer works, taking one 
hundred prisoners. But the second line was too strong 
to be taken by cavalry, and having no infantry support 
he was obliged to withdraw, after a sharp fight with the 
garrison. There was more fighting before the vicinity 
of Richmond was left, and Sheridan returned to Grant's 
army by way of the White House and the Pamunky. 
In Sheridan's second raid, a month later, the fighting 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 305 

at points was severe, and in one of the brushes with the 
enemy Custer's color bearer was shot. He saved the 
flag by tearing it from the pole and thrusting it under 
his coat while he continued his sabre-play on the enemy. 

When Sheridan was sent to the Shenandoah Valley 
to oppose Early, Custer and his cavalry brigade went 
with him and formed part of the powerful body of 
horsemen who aided so greatly in his success. This 
was especially the case on September 19, when Custer 
was in the crushing cavalry charge that determined 
Sheridan's victory and sent Early and his men " whirl- 
ing through Winchester." 

During Early's retreat down the valley he sent his 
cavalry, under Rosser, to hang upon Sheridan's rear 
and annoy him in his pursuit. Wearying of this, 
Sheridan let loose his cavalry upon Rosser and a fierce 
fight followed at Woodstock, in which Custer and 
Wesley Merritt took a prominent part. The sabre, 
Custer's favorite weapon, was chiefly used, and in a 
short time the Confederate cavalry broke and fled, 
leaving their guns, their wagons, and three hundred 
prisoners behind. Up the valley rode the fugitives, 
hotly pursued, the chase not ending until they had 
been driven twenty-six miles. Then Custer and his 
gallant men drew rein and rode leisurely and gaily 
back. 

But the most efficient work of the cavalry in the 
valley campaign was on October 19, during the notable 
fight at Cedar Creek, where, during Sheridan's absence 
from the army. Early made a night attack, surprised 
the sleeping troops, made a hot assault, and drove them 
back in utter dismay and with a heavy loss in prisoners, 
guns and equipage. 

In this critical state of affairs Custer and Merritt 



306 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

rendered the noblest service. While the Confederates, 
exhausted by sixteen hours of marching and fighting, 
stopped to rest and eat, and the broken lines made 
some effort to reform their ranks, these knights of the 
saddle, at the head of six or seven thousand gallant 
horsemen, rode into the open space between the two 
armies and served as a shield to the regiments forming 
behind them. When the Confederates again advanced, 
twenty thousand strong, they found their progress 
checked by these few thousands of mounted men, with 
a number of pieces of artillery. Charge after charge 
was made upon them, but they held firm, and were still 
acting as a stone wall of defence when Sheridan came 
riding up at headlong speed from Winchester and 
called his men to face the other way and win back the 
camp and cannon they had lost. Everyone is familiar 
with what followed, how defeat was turned into vic- 
tory, and Early lost far more than he had gained. 
The cavalry took a leading part in the pursuit and 
helped to end Early's career in the valley. Custer's 
share in these operations brought him the brevet rank 
of major-general of volunteers. 

In early March, 1865, came the event that ended 
Early's career in the valley and as a leader in the war. 
On February 25 Sheridan set out from Winchester 
at the head of a powerful cavalry force, ten thousand 
strong, led by Merritt and Custer. They rode rapidly 
up the valley, drove back Rosser, who tried to prevent 
their crossing the Shenandoah, and pushed on. Custer 
in the advance, for Rockfish Gap. At Waynesboro 
Early awaited them with twenty-five hundred men, 
strongly intrenched. He had boasted that he would 
never permit Sheridan to pass through the Gap. 

Custer lost no time. He fell upon Early with his 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 307 

customary dash and spirit and had him thoroughly used 
up before the rest of the command appeared. Of his 
twenty-five hundred men sixteen hundred were pris- 
oners, while Custer had taken eleven guns, seventeen 
battle-flags, and two hundred loaded wagons ; losing 
in the fight less than a dozen men. 

During the following night the expedition crossed 
the Blue Ridge and at two o'clock the next day Custer 
appeared before Charlottesville, the mayor of which 
came humbly out to present him the keys of the place. 
This was his second appearance in the vicinity of 
Charlottesville, which he had threatened a year before, 
during a raid in which he came within four miles of 
that place, but was prevented from taking it by a 
superior force, aided by a battery. He ended the 
present affair by an attack in which he practically 
destroyed the remainder of Early's force and nearly 
took their leader prisoner. 

Custer was " in at the death " of the Confederate 
army. He took part in the battles of Dinwiddie Court- 
House and Five Forks, which made Lee's position in 
Richmond untenable, and was active in the hard ride 
that brought the cavalry across Lee's line of retreat. 
When the exhausted Confederates, finding themselves 
opposed by a strong body of cavalry backed up by 
infantry, gave up the struggle in despair and sent out a 
flag of truce, it was Custer's fortune to receive it — a 
white towel on a pole. He was subsequently present 
at the ceremonies of surrender and fell heir to the 
flag of truce, together with the table on which the 
terms of surrender were written. 

The war ended, leaving Custer brevet brigadier in 
the regular army. After the grand review in Wash- 
ington, the gallant cavalier, still only twenty-six 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 307 

customary dash and spirit and had him thoroughly used 
up before the rest of the command appeared. Of his 
twenty-live hundred men sixteen hundred were pris- 
oners, while Custer had taken eleven guns, seventeen 
battle-flags, and two hundred loaded wagons ; losing 
in the fight less than a dozen men. 

During the following night the expedition crossed 
the Blue Ridge and at two o'clock the next day Custer 
appeared before Charlottesville, the mayor of which 
came humbly out to present him the keys of the place. 
This was his second appearance in the vicinity of 
Charlottesville, which he had threatened a year before, 
during a raid in which he came within four miles of 
that place, but was prevented from taking it by a 
superior force, aided by a battery. He ended the 
present aflFair by an attack in which he practically 
destroyed the remainder of Early's force and nearly 
took their leader prisoner. 

Custer was " in at the death " of the Confederate 
army. He took part in the battles of Dinwiddie Court- 
House and Five Forks, which made Lee's position in 
Richmond untenable, and was active in the hard ride 
that brought the cavalr}' across Lee's line of retreat. 
When the exhausted Confederates, finding themselves 
opposed by a strong body of cavalry backed up by 
infantry, gave up the struggle in despair and sent out a 
flag of truce, it was Custer's fortune to receive it — a 
white towel on a pole. He was subsequently present 
at the ceremonies of surrender and fell heir to the 
flag of truce, together with the table on which the 
terms of surrender were written. 

The war ended, leaving Custer brevet brigadier in 
the regular army. After the grand review in Wash- 
ington, the gallant cavalier, still only twenty-six 



3o8 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

years of age, was ordered on duty to Texas, and while 
there appHed for leave of absence for a year, to serve 
as chief of cavalry under Juarez, then fighting with 
Maximilian for the freedom of Mexico. The Govem- 
ment was not prepared to take a hand, either directly 
or indirectly, in this contest, and refused his request, 
and the next year sent him north, where in the spring 
of 1867 he was in Hancock's expedition against the 
Cheyenne Indians. He closed the campaign against 
them at Washita River on November 27, 1868, when he 
attacked them so fiercely and successfully that the band 
was almost annihilated. The few remaining were 
restored to their reservation, with the fight quite taken 
out of them. 

Custer remained for years on duty in the West, being 
sent to Dakota in March, 1873, while in July, 1874, he 
led an expedition to the Black Hills. It might have 
been supposed that familiarity with Indian methods of 
warfare would make him wary in dealing with them, 
but his old habit of impetuous dashes on the enemy 
clung to him and led in the end to the tragic occurrence 
in which the brave fellow laid down his life. 

This was in Terry's expedition against the Sioux 
in the spring of 1876, this powerful Indian nation being 
then in force on the war-path. In this afifair Custer, 
then at the head of a cavalry regiment, was directed to 
ride up the Rosebud River and cross to the head- 
waters of the Little Big Horn, there to cooperate with 
General Gibbon, who was following the valley of the 
Big Horn. The object of the movement was to sur- 
round the Indians and prevent their escape. 

On the 25th of June Custer reached the Little Big 
Horn, having crossed a narrow divide between the 
two streams. For some time indications of the pres- 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 309 

ence of the Indians had been seen, and they now be- 
came so evident that he felt sure the Indians were close 
at hand. He accordingly divided his command into 
three detachments, he leading five companies up the 
stream and sending the others out to right and left on 
the flanks of the foe, while he struck them in the centre. 
This was his usual method of attacking the savages, 
but this time it proved disastrous. 

His march brought him directly to the Sioux village, 
in which nine thousand braves in their war-paint were 
gathered. His detachments were not visible. One of 
them had reached the village, but had retreated before 
he came up. Custer's incautious advance without 
waiting for Gibbon, and the impetuous charge which he 
made upon the Indians, were reckless movements which 
could have but one end. The Sioux in overwhelming 
numbers attacked his small force, drove them back, and 
killed company after company, until Custer and forty 
of his officers and men alone faced them. These few 
continued to fight desperately, falling one by one, until 
the last of them perished, not a man being left alive. 
They had fought well and bravely, defying their foes 
for three hours, killing many of them, and never ceas- 
ing to strike until death ended their defence. The 
number slain was two hundred and sixty-one. 

No white man remained to tell the story of this 
slaughter, and it was afterwards learned from the 
Indians themselves, who told of the daring assault, the 
desperate struggle, and its fatal end. The field where 
it took place has since been made a National Cemetery, 
and a monument has been erected to the memory of 
Custer and his men. The remains of the brave leader 
were removed in 1877 and buried in the cemetery at 
West Point. 



GEORGE CROOK, THE SOLDIER FRIEND 
OF THE INDIAN 

Of the men who have taken part in settHng the 
Indian question none ranks higher than General Crook, 
who was sent against them as a soldier and fought 
them when he was forced to, but by his good sense, 
justice and discretion did more to make good citizens 
of them than could ever have been done by the rifle 
and the sword. The policy in dealing with the savages, 
especially with the fierce Apaches, had been one of 
destruction. Crook's method made quiet farmers of 
tribes which had previously given their time to murder 
and outrage. It is his story as an Indian fighter that 
we propose to tell, but in earlier years he had taken an 
active part in the Civil War, and his record in this 
must first be given. 

George Crook was born near Dayton, Ohio, Sep- 
tember 8, 1828, and after spending his boyhood and 
youth at home, was entered as a cadet in the Military 
Academy at West Point, where he graduated in 1852, 
in his twenty-fourth year. His first active service was 
as brevet second lieutenant in the fourth infantry 
regiment, with which he was sent to California, and 
served the Government there until 1861. He was not 
without war experience during these years, being in 
the Pitt River expedition of 1852, in which he took 
part in several fights with the Indians, and was seriously 
wounded by an arrow in one of these engagements. 

He was promoted first lieutenant in i860, and when 
the war between North and South began was called to 
310 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 311 

Washington and made colonel of the 36th Ohio regi- 
ment of volunteers. His first service was under 
McClellan in Western Virginia, where he was wounded 
in a fight at Lewinsburg, but he was in condition in 

1862 to take part in the battle of Antietam, and with 
such gallantry that he was rewarded with the rank of 
brevet lieutenant-colonel in the regular army. 

His most conspicuous service in the war was as a 
cavalry commander, he being placed in command in 

1863 of the second cavalry division of the army of 
the Cumberland, with which he took an active part in 
the battle of Chickamauga. Shortly afterwards he was 
sent with a cavalry force two thousand strong to pro- 
tect Rosecrans's line of communications, and in this 
duty came into conflict with General Wheeler, the 
noted Confederate hard rider, who was on a raid in 
Tennessee and had taken and burned a large convoy of 
supply wagons at McMinnville. 

Crook overtook his rear-guard as he was fleeing to- 
wards Murfreesboro, Colonel Long, of the second 
Kentucky cavalry, charging the Confederate raiders 
with great spirit. Wheeler's men dismounted and 
fought till dark, when they sprang to the saddle again 
and rode at full speed for Murfreesboro. The daring 
Confederate hoped to seize that important place with 
its munitions and supplies, but Crook was too hot 
upon his trail and he was obliged to take to the road 
again. The chase went on relentlessly, Wheeler doing 
what damage he could in his flight, until Duck River 
was crossed and Farmington reached, when Crook 
struck him again. 

His onset here was irresistible. Wheeler's line was 
cut in two, four of his guns and a thousand small arms 
were taken, two hundred of his men captured, and his 



312 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

forces driven in confusion in the direction of Pulaski, 
which his flying columns reached that night, much the 
worse for wear. He had had quite enough of Crook as 
an antagonist, and hastened to get on the safe side of 
the Tennessee and make his way back to Bragg's army, 
having done immense damage in his raid. 

In 1864 Crook was put in command of the eighth 
corps, known as the Army of West Virginia, and was 
given control of the military district of that State, 
where he won the battle of Cloyd's Mountain. At a 
later date he joined Sheridan's army in the Shenandoah 
Valley, and his corps bore the brunt of Early's furious 
charge at Cedar Creek. 

Crook's division held the advanced position on that 
field, the remaining divisions of the army being in flank 
and rear. Sheridan had been absent on business at 
Washington and was on his return to Winchester, not 
dreaming of a disaster to his army. At two o'clock in 
the morning of October 19 reports came to General 
Crook of mysterious sounds from the front, like the 
dull tramp of a multitude moving cautiously, but he 
could learn nothing to prove that an enemy was near 
at hand, and the alarm died away. The rest of the 
army slept on undisturbed. The fact was that Early's 
whole army had crept stealthily upon them under 
cover of the night, while a dense fog which rose before 
dawn concealed the troops as they marched noiselessly 
to their appointed positions. 

Morning had just dawned when a ringing battle- 
shout rent the air, the rattle of musketry was heard 
in all directions, and before the Nationals could seize 
their arms and fall into line Early's entire force broke 
from the mist and fell suddenly upon them. Crook's 
corps bore the first shock of this unlooked-for attack. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 313 

being struck with such fury that in fifteen minutes it 
was broken into fragments, the men flying in wild 
disorder back upon the other corps, leaving seven 
hundred prisoners and other spoil in the hands of the 
assailants. Crook vainly endeavored to stop the panic 
flight of his men, Emory, who lay behind him, was 
similarly broken, and the right of Sheridan's army was 
fearfully pressed at all points. Foreseeing an utter 
rout of the whole army, General Wright, in command 
in Sheridan's absence, ordered a general retreat, the 
sixth corps, the only one left in good order, skilfully 
covering it. All readers of history are aware of the 
sequel of this story, the coming of Sheridan to Win- 
chester, his swinging ride to the battle-field, the reform- 
ing of the lines under the inspiration of his presence, 
and the turning of defeat into victory, the triumphant 
Confederates being driven back in disorder and losing 
more than they had gained. 

Crook was honored with the brevet ranks of briga- 
dier-general and major-general in March, 1865, and 
was a cavalry commander in Sheridan's corps in April, 
directing the operations at Dinwiddle Court-House 
on the 1st, and taking an active part in the pursuit of 
Lee's army. Attacking a wagon train escorted by a 
formidable cavalry force near Jetersville, his force was 
repulsed ; but he rode to the support of Custer at 
Sailor's Creek, pierced the Confederate line at that 
point, and captured four hundred wagons, sixteen 
guns, and a large number of men. At Farmville he 
forded the Appomattox and attacked a body of infantry 
guarding a train. Here he was repulsed, and General 
Gregg, commanding a brigade, was captured. This 
was almost the last hostile demonstration of Lee's 
army and Gregg was their last prisoner, for two days 



314 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

later Lee with his whole army surrendered to General 
Grant. 

Such was George Crook's career as a soldier in the 
Civil War. A longer and more diversified one fol- 
lowed, for during the succeeding twenty-five years he 
was actively occupied in Indian warfare, or in the 
more creditable occupation of bringing the Indians into 
ways of peace. It was in the latter employment that 
General Crook made himself famous. As a skilled, 
daring and successful Indian fighter no man has sur- 
passed him ; as a true friend of the Indians no other 
man in the American army has equalled him. 

The story of his Indian experience is one of great 
interest. In July, 1866, he was made lieutenant-colonel 
of the Twenty-third Infantry, and for the following 
six years was occupied against the hostile tribes in 
Idaho. In 1872 he was sent to Arizona to operate 
against the Apaches, the fiercest and wildest of all the 
tribes. The policy of the Government against these 
Indians had been one of the rifle and the sabre. But 
the Apaches, sons of the mountain and the desert, 
proved hard either to kill or to conquer, and the Gov- 
ernment spent more than three million dollars in vain 
attempts to subdue them. At the end of it all they 
were still on the war-path and the country round their 
haunts was kept in a constant reign of terror. 

Crook knew the Indians and their ways and how 
to deal with them. The stronghold of the warring 
tribes was the Tonto Basin, a wild and desolate region 
in the midst of three separate ranges of arid mountains. 
Crook began by oflfering them peace and protection, if 
they would submit, with the threat that if they did not 
accept they would be " wiped oflF the face of the earth." 
Confident in the strength of their position, the Indians 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 315 

refused his offer, and the hard campaign began. Crook 
pushed the work with untiring energy and persistence, 
selecting for his arduous campaign the best Indian 
fighters to be found and pursuing the savages indefati- 
gably. They were given no time to rest. When they 
had fled many miles, and supposed their pursuers far 
behind, they found them close upon their track. Sleuth 
hounds of pursuit, nothing could throw them off. The 
fugitive warriors might seek the deepest and most inac- 
cessible fastnesses of the mountain, but the white trail- 
ers followed them to every refuge. When a party of 
hostiles was rounded up and taken, their best trailers 
were made to do service in running down the others. 
One of their most remote strongholds was reached by 
the troops after they had pushed the pursuit a whole 
night through. The savages, refusing to surrender, 
were shot down till few besides the women and chil- 
dren, who were hidden in a cave, remained. This fatal 
blow ended the struggle. The insurrection had been 
wiped out, and the surviving savages surrendered and 
were sent back to their reservation. 

This work thus well accomplished. Crook was 
ordered to Wyoming, where in 1875 he defeated the 
Cheyennes in two engagements at Powder River, met 
and whipped them again at Tongue River, and in a 
final engagement at Rosebud dealt them a terrible 
blow. This unwontedly rapid succession of defeats 
so incensed the Sioux Indians that they broke into a 
general rebellion, eleven of their tribes massing on the 
war-path against the hated whites. They won a tem- 
porary triumph in the massacre of Custer and his men 
when that impetuous soldier incautiously attacked their 
whole force with a detachment of his regiment. It 
was their only success. Crook, being reinforced, pur- 



3i6 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

sued them, drove them from their fastnesses, and 
severely defeated them, the final result of his operations 
being that the Indians of the Northwest were com- 
pletely subdued. 

In 1882 he was sent back to Arizona. The Apaches 
there were becoming restless and there was imminent 
danger of an outbreak. Crook had put them down 
before and he was thought the best man to deal with 
them again. He did so on this occasion without draw- 
ing a sword or firing a musket, simply by looking into 
the situation and remedying the evils of which the 
Indians complained. 

He found that the Apaches had good warrant for 
indignation. Their reservation had been invaded by 
Mormons, squatters, miners, and stock-raisers, by 
whom they had been maltreated and plundered. The 
situation needed a just head and a strong hand, and 
Crook had both. He drove out the invaders, reinstated 
the Indians in full control of their reservation, encour- 
aged them in farming operations, and protected them 
from invasion, until their mood was completely changed 
and they looked upon him as their best friend. He 
had two maxims in dealing with these savage wards 
of the Government. One was, that in fighting with 
Indians their own tactics must be adopted. The other 
was, that if we are true to the Indians they will be true 
to us. Both these he had found correct. 

There was one band of the Apaches who had not 
been subdued, the Chiricahuas, fierce and incorrigible 
savages, who continued their raids on the settlements, 
seeking their almost inaccessible fastnesses in the heart 
of the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico when closely 
pursued. In 1883 Crook, who had grown famous for 
success in dealing with the savages, was sent against 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 317 

this dangerous tribe. In dealing with it he adopted a 
new and shrewd method. Instead of pursuing the 
braves in the usual fashion, his plan was to go back on 
their trail, follow to their camp, capture their women 
and children, and patiently await the warriors on their 
return with their spoil. 

The force he took with him was a remarkable one. It 
consisted of a single company of infantry, two hun- 
dred of the reservation Apaches, who were armed with 
rifles, and one Chiricahua, who had agreed to act as 
guide to the strongholds of his tribe. When Crook 
appeared in the Mexican villages at the head of this 
strange force, the villagers gazed at them in astonish- 
ment and alarm. The idea of this handful of Ameri- 
cans trusting themselves with double their number of 
the blood-thirsty Apaches, and even arming these 
murderous savages with rifles, seemed sheer insanity. 
But Crook laughed at their fears. The Apaches were 
his friends. They were eager to fight his foes. He had 
no doubt of their trustworthiness. 

He showed his faith by marching with them into the 
depths of the mountains, following the Chiricahua 
guide through frightful ravines, up narrow mountain 
paths, and over beetling precipices, until he had vent- 
ured two hundred miles into the rockiest domain of 
northern Mexico. The march was one of intense 
hardship, but the guide proved true, the Apaches faith- 
ful, and the mountain camp they sought was at length 
reached and the women and children seized. Only 
five braves were with them in the camp. 

When the raiding warriors came near with the spoil 
of their foray they were thunderstruck to find their 
mortal foes awaiting them. Crook sent them word 
that their lives would be spared if they surrendered. 



3i8 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

If they refused death would be their lot. They knew 
him. His word had always been kept. Their case 
was hopeless, and they came in and gave themselves 
up, nearly four hundred in all, with their horses and 
plunder. 

Back over the rough mountain trail went Crook 
and his one company, in charge of six hundred of 
the wildest and fiercest savages in America. There 
was scarcely a moment in that long march in which 
the lives of himself and his men were safe. Yet he 
did not fear. His honest and just dealing with the 
Indians had won their friendship and they trusted him 
as he trusted them. They came safely back, and the 
captives settled quietly down upon their reservation. 

Crook had won the confidence of the Government 
as well as that of the Indians, and for the two years 
following the management of Indian affairs in that 
quarter was left entirely in his hands. During that 
time there were no hostilities. Traders, with their 
disturbing methods, were not permitted on the reser- 
vation. The Chiricahuas were put at work on farms, 
cash was paid them for army supplies, and within 
three years this once intractable tribe had become a 
peaceful and self-supporting ward of the Government. 

Once more only in his life did George Crook take 
to the war-path. The vicious " Indian ring " at Wash- 
ington was constantly doing its best to get possession 
of the fertile Indian lands, and it succeeded in having 
a law passed ordering the six thousand Apaches to 
leave their reservation and go to another. The latter 
proved a place where the soil was arid, the water 
brackish, and flies a torment, and the result was what 
might have been expected. The Indians broke into 
revolt, and soon there was again a reign of terror. 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 319 

The famous war chief Geronimo was at the head of 
this revolt. In May, 1885, he escaped from Fort 
Apache with a band of more than a hundred warriors, 
women, and children. Crook was put upon the track 
of the fugitives and pressed the pursuit for hundreds 
of miles without getting within gunshot of the band. 
Finally, the long chase ended in the running down of 
Geronimo; but Crook held the wily savage only one 
night, when he escaped. The next night he stole back 
to the camp, carried off his wife, and was out of reach 
before he could be pursued. 

This ended Crook's connection with the matter, 
other Indian fighters, Miles and Lawton, being sent 
to hunt Geronimo, while he was relieved at his own 
request. In our sketches of these two men the remain- 
der of this story will be told. Crook was made a major- 
general in 1888 and put in command of the department 
of the Missouri, with head-quarters at Chicago. Here 
he died on March 21, 1890. 



HENRY W. LAWTON, A VETERAN OF 
THREE WARS 

General Lawton, the old soldier who met his fate 
in a Philippine bullet, after passing unscathed through 
so many battles that he thought himself invulnerable, 
was one of the most interesting characters in our 
recent military history. Not trained for war at West 
Point, like all those of the Civil War period whose 
stories we have told, he began his career in the ranks, 
and worked his way upwards by dint of courage and 
ability, till he ended as one of the chief leaders in the 
Philippine war. As one of those who climbed from the 
bottom to the top, and who was one of our bravest and 
most skilful Indian fighters, his story justly belongs 
here. 

Henry Ware Lawton was bom in Manhattan, now a 
suburb of Toledo, Ohio, March 17, 1843. He was sent 
to a Methodist college at Fort Wayne, Ind., in 1854, 
and was still a student there in 1861, when the Civil 
War began. A boy of eighteen at that time, he 
hastened to enlist, entering a regiment in the three 
months' service on April 18, three days after the Presi- 
dent's call for troops. His position in his company was 
that of first sergeant, but on his reenlistment at the 
end of the three months' term, his good conduct had 
won a standing that brought him the rank of first 
lieutenant in the Thirtieth Indiana regiment, the organ- 
ization with which he remained connected until the end 
of the war. 

Lawton passed through the war unharmed, though 

320 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 321 

his regiment fought in over twenty battles, and only a 
small percentage of its original members lived to see 
their homes again. At Shiloh it suffered very severely, 
and it saw heavy fighting at Stone River and Chicka- 
mauga and in the battles of Sherman's advance upon 
Atlanta. Lawton was now captain of his company, 
having been promoted on May 17, 1862. His most 
notable service was during the battles before Atlanta, 
where, on August 31, 1864, he led a charge of skir- 
mishers against the enemy's rifle-pits, captured them, 
and repulsed three desperate attempts to recapture 
them. For this gallant service he was awarded by 
Congress a medal of honor. 

Taking part in the expedition sent to Nashville to 
oppose Hood in his march against Sherman's com- 
munications, he fought bravely under Schofield at the 
battle of Franklin and under Thomas at the battle of 
Nashville. In the latter he commanded his regiment, 
though ranking still as captain. He was promoted to 
lieutenant-colonel on February 10, 1865, and on March 
13 was given the brevet rank of colonel, as a reward 
for gallant service during the war. 

The war over, Lawton left the army for a time, 
studying law at Fort Wayne and Harvard, but the old 
war spirit was too strong in him to be kept down, and 
in 1867 he left Harvard to enter the regular army, 
being commissioned second lieutenant in the Forty- 
first Infantry, a regiment of colored troops. Shortly 
afterwards he was made first lieutenant, and was 
gradually advanced during later years, not reaching 
the grade of colonel until 1898. 

Lawton's field of activity was largely in the far 
West, where he took part in some of the most arduous 
and successful Indian wars of the period, serving under 



322 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

General R. S. Mackenzie, and later under Crook in 
Arizona. But his most distinguished service was in 
1886 under Miles, who had succeeded General Crook 
in the campaign against Geronimo. 

We have told the story of how Crook pursued and 
captured Geronimo, and how the wily Apache chief 
escaped. This famous chief was accounted the most 
dangerous man in his ferocious tribe, and strenuous 
eflforts were made to run him down and capture him. 
It was a task of the greatest difficulty, and would have 
been hopeless except in the hands of men trained in 
every device of the Indians themselves and hardened 
to the perils and hardships of desert life. Chato, a 
cousin of Geronimo, and like him a leading chief, 
came to the aid of the whites in their efforts to overtake 
the blood-thirsty fugitive, whom he professed to hate. 
Later events indicated, however, that the two were 
allies, and that Chato, by means only known to them- 
selves, signalled Geronimo and helped him to avoid 
his pursuers. 

Geronimo met his fate at last, when Miles put Law- 
ton on his track. A giant in strength and stature, 
absolutely fearless, and with all the endurance of an 
Apache, Lawton vowed to run down the daring fugi- 
tive, even if he had to pursue him to the City of Mexico. 
He did chase him and his band for a distance of thir- 
teen hundred miles, over the Sierra Madre Mountains 
and far into Mexico, there being an agreement between 
the United States and Mexico which permitted the 
despatch of troops over the frontier when on the track 
of marauding Indians. 

There is nothing in the history of Indian warfare 
more marked by daring, endurance, and persistence 
than Lav^tbri's pursuit of the raiding Apaches. The 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 323 

only mate to it is in the similar exploits of General 
Crook. At the head of a detachment of the Fourth 
Cavalry, Lawton put himself on the track of Geronimo's 
death-dealing band, followed it untiringly and persist- 
ently, now overtaking and killing a number of the mur- 
derous warriors, now losing them again, until in 
desperation Geronimo crossed the Rio Grande and 
headed for the arid depths of the Sierra Madre. No 
men ever lived more capable of enduring the extremes 
of hunger and thirst and the horrors of a desert life than 
the Apache Indians, and none were more alert in the 
exigencies of Indian warfare. But they had met their 
match in Lawton and his picked horsemen. For two 
hundred miles the chase was kept up, without a day's 
cessation, until at length the Apaches were brought to 
bay and a brisk fight took place. This was within the 
confines of Mexico, to which the Indians had often 
fled for safety, knowing that their pursuers would 
not cross the border. To their dismay they found 
that this wall of refuge no longer served, and that 
when they took to flight again the weariless pur- 
suers were after them with the same sleuth-hound 
persistence. 

For three hundred miles farther the troops kept up 
the chase, riding deep into Mexico, following the trail 
as it wound in and out of the mountains and canons 
of Sonora. It crossed and doubled upon itself, winding 
through almost inaccessible wilds and up and down 
terrifying slopes, but the pursuers never gave up, and 
at length the dusky fugitives, worn out, utterly ex- 
hausted and in a starving condition, ceased their efforts 
to escape and surrendered to their indefatigable 
pursuers. 

Lawton had brought Geronimo's career of murder 



324 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

and outrage to an end. The daring chief had been 
captured before, but only to escape and renew his 
bloody work. The settlers felt unsafe while he re- 
mained in their vicinity, and for security he and 
his leading chiefs were now sent to Fort Pickens, 
Florida, the others of the band being confined in Fort 
Marion, St. Augustine. But as their health suffered 
here they were removed to Mount Vernon, Alabama, 
where schools were opened for their children. Some 
of the brightest pupils in the Indian School at Carlisle 
have been the boys and girls of those merciless raiders 
whom Lawton brought to bay in the mountains of 
Sonora. 

On the 4th of March, 1898, when war with Spain 
was imminent, Lawton was commissioned brigadier- 
general, and was among those sent to Cuba after war 
was declared. In the operations against Santiago he 
commanded a division of the army on the extreme 
right, five miles from the sea. The remainder of the 
troops were stretched out in a long line until the ex- 
treme left rested upon the coast. On the hilly ground 
before them were the strongly intrenched positions of 
the Spaniards, General Wheeler facing the steep hill of 
San Juan, Lawton the picturesque old town of El 
Caney. These were the two chief localities of the 
battle of July i, 1898. 

While Wheeler and his men were advancing upon 
San Juan, Lawton was similarly engaged at El Caney. 
He had a difficult task before him. There was a fort 
near the town and in front a covered way, filled with 
Spanish sharp-shooters, while the houses of the town, 
some of them with walls several feet thick, served as 
subsidiary forts. A battery of artillery shelled this 
position, while the infantry slowly made their way 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 325 

inward, taking advantage of every shelter oflfered by 
the rolling ground, and keeping up a fire from every 
available position reached. The Spaniards, however, 
held their post persistently, and in the end a charge was 
ordered, before which the defenders abandoned the 
fort and covered way. But they held on tenaciously to 
the town and it was nightfall before it was taken. The 
whole day had been occupied in this work, and during 
the night Lawton made a movement to the aid of 
Wheeler, who was threatened with an attack in force 
next day. The attack came, but the Americans firmly 
retained every position they had captured, and with 
this the fighting part of the campaign against Santiago 
was virtually at an end. 

On the 8th of July Lawton was promoted major- 
general, and after the surrender was put in charge of 
the department of Santiago, as commander of the 
fourth army corps. He returned home in time to 
accompany the President in his tour of the States after 
the treaty of peace, and on January 19, 1899, sailed 
from San Francisco for the Philippine Islands, to aid 
in suppressing the insurrection which had broken out 
there. 

Reaching Manila on March 10, he had his first 
active service in April, when he set out on an expedi- 
tion to Laguna de Bay, the large lake back of Manila, 
and on the loth captured the town of Santa Cruz. He 
continued along the lake, capturing various places, 
which were afterwards abandoned. A general advance 
was begun on April 24, Lawton's " flying column," as 
his command was called, following the very difficult 
country along the foothills to drive out the lurking 
bodies of Filipino bushwhackers, against whom he 
pursued successfully his old Indian tactics. This was 



326 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

especially the case at San Rafael, where he met with 
a heavy fire from insurgents concealed in jungles, and 
fought against them on the frontier principle of every 
man for himself. On May 17 he captured San Isidro, 
the second capital of the Filipino government. 

His expedition had been a bold and successful one, 
he having marched one hundred and twenty miles in 
twenty days, over very difficult roads, captured twenty- 
eight towns, and destroyed three hundred thousand 
bushels of rice, his whole loss being six men killed 
and thirty-one wounded, while the Filipinos had lost 
far more heavily. With the coming on of the rainy 
season he withdrew his forces, as it would be impos- 
sible to send them supplies over the muddy cartways 
away from the railway line. 

In June he advanced again, and this time captured 
the town of Morong, a strong point on the Laguna de 
Bay. In July he marched south, and here had a sharp 
fight with the insurgents on Zapote River. He made 
another expedition to the north in November, and after 
his return to Manila set out on the final march of his 
long career. With him were the Eleventh Cavalry and 
two infantry battalions, their goal being San Mateo, 
a place which had been several times taken and de- 
serted and was now reported to be occupied by a force 
of Filipinos. 

The distance from Manila was about fifteen miles, 
the country rough, and a severe tropical storm of rain 
descended upon them, adding greatly to the annoyances 
of the night march. Yet the troops toiled resolutely 
onward, now over rocks, now through mud, and at 
daybreak found themselves in front of a line of in- 
trenchments occupied by about five hundred of the 
enemy. The troops advanced until they were about 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 327 

three hundred yards distant. Here Lawton put his 
men fairly under cover, but with his customary disre- 
gard of danger he stood boldly out in their front, 
reconnoitring the enemy. His tall form and light- 
colored coat made him a conspicuous mark for sharp- 
shooters, and his officers begged him to be more 
careful. 

" I must see what is going on at the firing line," 
he said, and walked towards it, meeting two of his 
aides returning. As they were about to report they 
saw him clench his hands and turn pale. 

" What's the matter, General ? " was asked. 

" I am shot through the lungs," he replied. 

Without another word he fell upon his face, blood 
pouring from his mouth, and in a few minutes the 
brave soldier was dead. 

This death of one of their heroes was a severe shock 
to the American people, by whom Lawton was highly 
admired. He died poor, leaving his wife and children 
almost destitute. This was overcome by a popular 
subscription, which netted ninety thousand dollars — 
enough to free his homestead from debt and leave a 
considerable sum for his family's support. No one 
concerned in military affairs stood higher than he at 
that time in public esteem, and he will long be looked 
on as one of our country's most gallant soldiers. 



NELSON A. MILES, THE SIOUX AND 
APACHE INDIAN FIGHTER 

Nelson Appleton Miles, a soldier of the United 
States, of forty years of active service, from the begin- 
ning of the Civil War to the end of that with Spain, 
and a veteran of the Indian wars, was born in West- 
minster, Massachusetts, August 8, 1839. Raised on a 
farm, and afterwards spending some years in a Boston 
store, he was in his twenty-first year when President 
Lincoln's demand for troops called the North to war 
to avenge the insult to the flag on Fort Sumter. 

Young Miles was among those quick to respond. 
He raised a company of volunteers, which became 
a part of the Twenty-second Massachusetts regiment, 
and in September, 1861, went with it to the front as its 
captain. Young in looks and without military experi- 
ence, the boyish captain was deemed by the colonel 
unfit for so responsible a position, and was obliged 
to resign and accept the rank of lieutenant. But there 
were others who thought differently. On pay day, 
when the yoimg officer appeared before the United 
States paymaster to draw his salary, the latter said : 
" You are a captain : get your pay and take command 
of your company." 

This put Colonel Wilson in something of a quandary. 
He feared a conflict of authority between himself and 
the Government army officials, and to escape it he ad- 
vised the youthful officer to take a position on General 
Casey's staff. This he did, and afterwards entered the 
Peninsular campaign as an aide on the staff of General 
328 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 329 

Howard. As such he continued to progress in rank, 
being commissioned on May 21, 1862, lieutenant- 
colonel, and on September 30 colonel, of the Sixty-first 
New York regiment, a rapid promotion for one so 
young. 

Bravery in battle had much to do with this progress 
in rank. At the battle of Fair Oaks he led a detach- 
ment under heavy fire to the support of Colonel Bar- 
low, then hard pressed by the enemy. This brought 
him his first promotion, and also a severe wound, but 
he was able to fight in the battle of Antietam, taking 
command of the regiment when Colonel Barlow fell 
wounded, and winning the rank of colonel by his skill 
and courage as a regimental leader. 

Miles led the regiment on the death-dealing field of 
Fredericksburg, and at Chancellorsville displayed con- 
spicuous gallantry, holding a line of abatis and rifle- 
pits against charges by a strong force of the enemy, 
until he fell from his horse with a bullet in his body. 
The wound was so severe that it was thought to be 
fatal, but the ball was extracted, and as soon as he 
was fairly able to move he returned to the army on 
crutches. His soldierly service on this occasion was 
rewarded with a medal of honor. He was further 
rewarded for his gallantry here, in August, 1864, by 
the brevet rank of brigadier-general, and for his ser- 
vices throughout the war by that of major-general. 

Similar recognition of his services was made in 
March, 1867, the brevet grades of brigadier-general 
and major-general in the regular army being awarded 
him as a reward for his gallantry in the battle of 
Spottsylvania. He had thrown aside his crutches 
before this battle was fought, and took an active part 
in the engagements of Grant's overland march upon 



330 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

Richmond, from the desperate conflict in the Wilder- 
ness to the final fights before Petersburg, In the 
closing events he commanded a division of the corps 
under General Humphreys, joining Sheridan after the 
battle of Five Forks and aiding him effectively in the 
capture of Petersburg. 

On April 7, when Lee had retreated to Appomattox, 
Humphreys was in the lead of the pursuers, with his 
two divisions under Miles and De Trobriand. Crossing 
the Appomattox River, he found himself confronted by 
Lee's intrenched army. Not having men enough to 
dislodge the army by a flanking movement, he resolved 
on an assault, ordering Barlow to attack the front and 
sending Miles against the Confederate left. Miles 
proved the more expeditious of the two, and made his 
attack before Barlow had reached his allotted position. 
As a consequence he and his men found themselves 
very strongly opposed and were driven back, losing 
about six hundred men. Night was at hand before 
Barlow was ready, and the attack was not resumed. 

This was the last success of Lee's army, except the 
repulse of General Crook and his cavalry division, 
which took place about the same time. It gave Lee 
momentary encouragement, but his case was really 
hopeless, and on the 9th, finding himself practically 
surrounded, he laid down his arms and the long- 
protracted contest came to an end. 

Miles continued in the army after the war, and in 
July, 1866, when twenty-six years of age, found him- 
self at the head of the fortieth regiment of the United 
States troops. Though the war in the South was at 
an end, there was war in the West likely to last for 
many years, and the leaders of the army found plenty 
of work awaiting them. The migration of settlers into 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 331 

the plains beyond the Mississippi, and the unjust treat- 
ment of the old owners of the soil by those covetous 
newcomers, roused the Indians to bitter reprisal, and 
for more than a quarter of a century there was war 
on the plains and mountains of the West and in the 
desert realm of the Southwest. In this warfare a 
number of the army leaders made fine records, notably 
Custer, Crook, Lawton, and Miles. We have described 
the service of the first three as Indian fighters ; that 
of Miles remains. 

This service was full of interesting and exciting inci- 
dent, but we can deal with it here only in brief out- 
line. Though the Indians had undoubtedly been badly 
treated, their murderous manner of avenging their 
wrongs could not be countenanced, it being impossible 
for the Government to permit its ill-treated wards to 
redress their grievances by the murder of settlers 
and the inhuman torture of prisoners. They had to be 
subdued and forced to stay quietly on their reserva- 
tions first of all, and for those who refused to yield to 
this necessity the strong hand of the military was the 
only argument that could be employed. To seek to 
repress them quietly did not avail. In 1873 a com- 
mission was sent to treat for peace with the rebellious 
Modocs and to ofifer them terms. In the midst of the 
conference the savages suddenly attacked the com- 
missioners, killing two of them and badly wounding a 
third. With men like these strong measures had to 
be used, and Colonel Miles was one of those who 
took them in hand. 

His early service was against the wild and warlike 
Cheyennes and Comanches on the border of the Staked 
Plains of Texas. These he defeated in several encoun- 
ters in 1875, ^n<^ i" the following year took part in the 



332 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

contest against the warrior bands of the Sioux, who 
under Sitting Bull and other notable chiefs had recently 
slaughtered Custer and his men. He was successful 
in aiding to break up their bands, and it was he who 
drove Sitting Bull over the frontier, obliging him to 
take refuge in Canadian territory. He also dispersed 
the strong bands led by Crazy Horse, Lean Deer, 
Broad Trail, and other notable warriors. In this way 
the dangerous Sioux outbreak was in a year or two 
effectually put down, Miles having proved so per- 
sistent and capable in this work that he became widely 
known as the " Indian fighter." 

He had soon another tribe to deal with, that of 
the Nez Perces of the Northwest. These Indians, 
whose dwelling place was on the Pacific slope of the 
Rocky Mountains, had been first visited by Lewis and 
Clark in their famous journey across the continent. 
In 1854 the United States bought a large section of 
their land and set aside a reservation for them in the 
northern border region of Idaho and Oregon. But 
like the Seminoles of Florida, many of the chiefs 
opposed the sale of their lands and when the date came 
for their migration refused to leave their old home. 

Chief Joseph was the leader of these malcontents, 
a man of fine intelligence, shrewd and sagacious, and 
in his way one of the most remarkable Indians of 
the century. As he and his followers would not leave 
their old lands, General Howard was sent to force 
them to do so. As the Chief was too weak to fight 
the regulars he contrived to elude them, and this he 
did with masterly skill. Though pursued by them for 
hundreds of miles, he kept out of their reach, and in 
all his evolutions brought the women, children, and 
property of the band safely along with him. His 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 333 

shrewdness and skill were such that even his pursuers 
admired them. 

In the autumn of 1877 Chief Joseph and the Nez 
Perces were in the mountains of northern Montana, 
and here they were confronted by Miles at the head 
of another body of regulars. Once more the wily chief 
evaded his enemies, and crossed the Missouri near 
its junction with the Mussel Shell. But this game 
of flight could not be kept up unceasingly. At length 
Howard and Miles brought the Indians to bay in the 
Bear Paw Mountains, and a battle ensued in which the 
Nez Perces fought bravely but were defeated. Joseph 
now saw that his case was hopeless. He walked with 
dignity to where General Howard was sitting on his 
horse and handed him his rifle. Then pointing to the 
sun, he said, " From where the sun is in yonder 
heavens I fight the white man no more." His captors 
admired the brave chief, who had shown such rare skill 
and had restrained his tribe from the usual Indian 
cruelties. Howard promised to be his friend, and 
secured him and his band so favorable a location that 
they were quite satisfied and remained afterwards 
quiet and peaceable. Miles was next engaged in the 
pursuit of an insurgent party of Bannocks, whom he 
captured in 1878 near Yellowstone Park and forced to 
remain on their reservation. In 1886 the chief Indian 
trouble was in the Southwest, where Geronimo, the 
ferocious Apache chief, had taken to the war-path, 
with General Crook on his track. After the alert chief 
had been taken and had escaped again, Crook asked to 
be relieved and Miles was put in his place. The new 
commander saw that there was but one way to deal 
with such a man. He must be run down and captured, 
if it took months or years. There could be no safety 



334 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

for the whites while this hostile and ferocious band was 
at liberty. The work to be done needed a small party 
of select men and a capable leader, and the final work 
of running down the chief was given to Lawton, a man 
who had all the endurance of those he pursued. In our 
sketch of General Lawton we have told the story of 
his remarkable exploit. 

For the service rendered by General Miles, in reliev- 
ing them from the horrors often perpetrated by the 
terrible Apaches and other tribes, the legislatures of 
Kansas, Montana, Arizona and New Mexico gave him 
votes of thanks and Arizona presented him with a 
sword of honor. His latest warlike service against 
the Indians was in 1890-91, when he suppressed an 
outbreak of the Sioux and Cheyennes. In 1894 he 
was sent with troops to put down the railroad riot at 
Chicago, interference with the mails inducing Presi- 
dent Cleveland to employ United States troops for this 
purpose. It was the only time in our history in which 
the regular army has been used to suppress a strike. 

During the years from 1880 to 1897 General Miles 
was successively in command of the departments of the 
Columbia, Missouri, Arizona, and the Pacific. In the 
latter year he visited England as the representative of 
the United States at the magnificent jubilee celebration 
of Queen Victoria's sixtieth year on the throne, and 
during the same year visited the scene of the war 
then waging between Greece and Turkey. He went 
there as a skilled military observer and as commander- 
in-chief of the army of the United States, which rank 
he had held since the retirement of General Schofield 
in 1895. 

In the war with Spain m 1898, Miles, though in 
command of the army, had his movements and powers 



HEROES OF THE ARMY 335 

hampered by hostile feeling in the war department. 
He mobilized a regular army of twenty-five thousand 
men and organized for service a volunteer force of 
over two hundred thousand, but he was not sent to 
Cuba until after the fighting was at an end. He 
arrived there on July 11 with an expert force he had 
organized, but found little to do besides accepting the 
surrender of the Santiago garrison. That he might 
not take from General Shafter the honor of receiving 
the formal surrender, he generously left before it 
took place, and on the i8th set sail for Porto Rico, 
the invasion of which he had taken into his own hands. 

He had with him thirty-three hundred men against 
a Spanish force of about seventeen thousand. But he 
was so rapid in his movements and skilled in his dis- 
positions that by August 13 his little army had gained 
favorable positions in all quarters of the island. Up 
to this date there had been little more than skirmishes, 
but on that day General Brooke was on the point of 
attacking a strong Spanish position on the road to 
Cayey. All was ready for what might have proved 
a sanguinary battle, when Lieutenant McLaughlin, rid- 
ing up to the battery that was about to fire on the 
Spanish works, called out, " Cease action ! " 

"Why?" he was asked. 

" Because the war is over. A peace protocol was 
signed at Washington yesterday and our work here 
is at an end." 

That closed the war record of General Miles, which 
had continued with little intermission for nearly forty 
years. In January, 1900, a special honor was done him, 
the grade of lieutenant-general, which had been per- 
mitted to lapse, being revived in his honor. On Feb- 
ruary 2, 1901, when the army was reorganized, Presi- 



336 HEROES OF THE ARMY 

dent McKinley appointed him especially to that grade. 
He visited the Philippines on a tour of inspection in 

1902, and withdrew from active service August 8, 

1903, having attained the legal age of retirement. 
General Miles has received college honors not usu- 
ally confered upon military men, Harvard University 
giving him the honorary degree of LL.D. in 1896 
and Brown University in 1901. He is the author of a 
number of works devoted to military topics. 



THE END 



NOV 27 1906 



